I was hoping that standing-room only "seats" at Pac Bell Park didn't really mean that I would have to stand the whole game, but I was wrong. I stood - for close to three hours, and it wasn't all that bad...when I could actually see the game.

Last night I watched the AFI tribute to Robert DeNiro - he was receiving their lifetime achievement award. Certain people that had co-starred with him in his various films each got a chance to make a short speech to him before introducing a clip from his many, many films. I noticed that the actors from my generation (i.e. Juliette Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio) all talked about how Robert DeNiro was who they had looked up to as they started their careers or how he was the one who had made them want to be an actor in the first place. And it made me scared...because who will my future son have to look up to within my generation of actors? I dread the day that I hear my child say he wants to be an actor because of how good Ben Affleck was in Daredevil. Our movie world is so saturated nowadays with these cheesy blockbuster movies or actors and actresses that are a hit for as long as they can appeal to the TRL viewing crowd (that includes you Katie!) that I feel as if our generation is missing those timeless, graceful presences that dominated the screen a generation ago. Let's hope someone like Adrien Brody never puts on spandex for a superhero role and finds his own "Goodfellas" because the outlook is grim.

Some thoughts from the weekend:

• Randomly catching the same dumb TV clip while on the phone with your best friend is a sure way to laugh until you cry.
  
• Santana Row down in San Jose is just too fake to be believable.
  
• Mixing work friends and personal friends is an art that most people can't master.
  
• A baseball game just isn't the same if you're not sitting in the sun.
  
• "The Hulk" CGI was fantastic, but the movie was slow and having to sit in a theater with loud kids made me realize that I am slowly losing patience with the whole movie-going experience.
  
• I highly recommend the novel "Everything is Illuminated" - it made me laugh out loud!
  
• Even with three days, weekends seem much too short.
  

From now on, whenever someone asks me to guess their age, I'm going to think of the age in my head - and then subtract 3-5 years, depending on the mood I'm in. I am not going to take in the man's (or woman's...but this time it was a man's) wrinkles, his grey hairs, his out-of-shape body - mix it all up and blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind. Because when that happens, you say something like 36 and then you watch the man's eyes get really big and he says to you, "You think I'm 36?!?!" with the most incredulous voice you've heard. Then his whole face changes and in a very defeated tone he says, "I'm 30." It is not a good feeling to make someone talk in that tone of voice. Especially when earlier in the day you called him by the wrong name.

It's funny the things that can come out of a parent's mouth when they've had a few drinks...

Tonight my mom basically proceeded to tell me that I'm not cosmopolitan enough to live in San Francisco. That I have "roots," as she put it. Why a person who has roots can't be cosmopolitan is a question that I don't have the answer to, but my mom's statement did get me thinking. And I guess she's partially right - I would never describe myself as cosmopolitan; I may perhaps try to have a greater cosmo flair on occasion, but the neighborhood I live in and the people I choose to hang out with don't lend themselves to the cosmopolitan lifestyle - and that's definitely fine by me. And I do have roots - I am a huge family person, as anyone can figure out within a short amount of time of knowing me (and the whole "roots" thing reminds me of the time Taj and I had this big discussion about how important roots are for families - he was drunk then...maybe alcohol and roots are joined in a way I'm only slowly starting to comprehend - who knows?).

But the most important thing my mom's statement did for me was to remind me of how much I love the city I live in. San Francisco is great for so many reasons, but one of them is the fact that the cosmopolitan feel of the city rests so comfortably alongside the hippie feel, the gay feel, the pub quizzes and beer feel... San Francisco is a city for everyone. I know that I most likely won't end up living here for the rest of my life - my mom's right in knowing that my "roots" need a more suburban soil to grow in - but I will always have a special connection to this great city. (I heart SF!)

Last Friday, a girl that I worked closely with at this job left to go back to grad school. She was a very good friend, one of my closest here, and I am going to miss her tremendously. I really hope that we stay in touch and hang out together in the future. But it got me thinking of all the people that I have met in my various job experiences or other similar situations that have been special to me, but for some reason or another I no longer talk to - the people that inhabit your small world for a limited time and then just gently fade away. I tried to figure out why we no longer talk - and there are some good reasons - one moved to another state, one had a baby - but overall, they're not very sound reasons. I have email, phone numbers, addresses...yet, I don't make an effort to get in touch with these people. So for awhile I got sad, and then I felt guilty, but I think I'm okay with it after all. I like the idea that some greater power put these people into my life at the times that I needed them for a reason that was either apparent at the time or still isn't. I feel lucky to have known so many good people - so to all the Dezs, Jeanies, Analies out there - thanks for the memories!