santogold!!

her debut drops on downtown records the 29th!

and it's currently available via mtvU. i admit the comparison to MIA is relatively accurate, but i personally think she's better. maya's first album was great, but I couldnt get into kala. santogold rocks, though. check her out live on youtube. "shove it" is almost perfect.

santogold- Les Artistes [XXXchange Remix]

i rarely buy cds these days, but i think i might just preorder this one.

im not a doctor, but...

so i got a copy of my MRI last night, and tried to self diagnose. my verdict: no acl. then, today, i got a call from the wonderful Dr Allen at the UCSF med center. turns out i read my MRI correctly: no ACL to speak of. everything else - PCL, meniscus, etc - looks great, thank god.

but not gonna lie, im a little proud of myself and my detective work...

an mri of a nomal knee:

my knee:

Yup, nothing connecting those two bonesies.

A Symmetry of Sorts (just my luck)

number 2.
well, this is slightly unfortunate.

No MRI yet but Dr. Allen (recommended by a Fury with two bionic knees) is pretty confident my ACL in my left (ie, the knee formerly known as "the good one") is completely non-existent. i asked for surgery tomorrow, but apparently that's pushing it. swelling has gone down a lot, though. i can even do squats, and i have almost full range of motion. i might not even need pre-op PT .... most likely scheduling surgery for the week of May 5.

ACL's and women: how crazy is it that, phsyiologically, women are so much more at risk for knee injury? you never hear about guys tearing their ACL's while cutting or landing - it's usually due to a tackle or direct hit. not gonna lie, im a little jealous right now.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800EFDC1E3EF935A35755C0A9629C8B63

http://www.orthopodsurgeon.com/aclinwomen.html

ouch, my knee.

i was so excited for the next few weeks: fury tryouts this past weekend, then the triple hit next week with zeitgeist and slackjaw on sat and mayhem on sunday...

fury is sort of a shot in the dark, but it was really nice to be invited. practicing with them yesterday was great. i played okay, got tired way too fast though and started making some mistakes. i realized just how incredibly out of shape i am. by our second drill, i was dying. and trying to be an active cutter in the scrimmage was slightly painful. learned a ton, though. their coach matty is the perfect complement to their team. sort of soft-spoken and kind, and a really good teacher. the girls are great. there were about ten furies, and then ten of us tryouts. saw lots of familiar faces with the tryouts (decided i love playing with hammer and lyrica [ex-godiva, great handler]) and some new ones. tons of talent. did a lot of d stuff, which was great. worked on forcing your runner into certain lanes, and really positioning yourself smartly. realized i severely need to work on my break throws, but maybe this is the season for it, seeing as about three fourths of the way through practice, we were running a d drill, and i was on o with nancy sun (ex-brute handler, just moved out here) guarding me. i cut hard in, then out, then went to turn and cut hard in, and when i planted my left foot, i heard a massive popping and it felt like i had pulled something out of its socket. i didnt scream (for once) or even fall, just sort of stopped and tried to keep going but couldnt support myself. spent the last half hour of practice icing, cheering, and trying to remain optimistic.

things werent much better this morning. hurt a lot when i woke up, big time swollen, and pain trying to bend it. went to tryouts again and just watched. threw a little in the beginning and tried to move a little, but had absolutely no stability, only lots of pain and buckling. fantastic.

ended up telling fury that if my knee isnt serious, id consider being a practice player. honestly, even if i were healthy, im not sure id be good even for even that (or whether id really want to if i were able to make other teams and actually play tournaments with them). but it'd be insane to even practice with them. i love the intensity with which they play, and i think id just learn a ton...

that's the thing that's so frustrating about being hurt right now. honestly, if i cant play frisbee this season, it's going to make settling into sf a lot harder. more that that, though, ive yet to play a real club season. two years ago with bnogo i tore my acl in my right knee. then last year, loose cannon didnt practice. so in some ways, i havent really improved since junior year. id really like to just play a freaking club season and work on my game. there's so much i want to focus on - my defense, my cuts, and god, my fakes and break marks...

but whatever happens, ill deal with it.
i mean, hard cut. field sport. woman. loud pop. instability and inability to turn or support my weight in any direction but forward... textbook acl, huh?

im just hoping i can get a doctor's appt for this week...

family reunion!!!

fools west followed by fools fest.

last weekend was in santa cruz for fools west.
gorgeous fields overlooking the city and Monterey Bay...

Drove out with some awesome slackjaw girls, and split time with them and some zeitgeist kids. had some great games with both - the teams were so different but so much fun. slackjaw was mostly kids my age - recent grads from berkeley, stanford and davis - and the team was pretty big. bomb squad was with melanie and hammer and some zg / fury / godiva girls, and i had such a good time playing with them. both teams mostly rolled the competition, but the hardest game of the day came with slackjaw against downtown brown - a whole team of asians(!!!) and a whole lotta squirrelliness. talk about pain.
got a call the movers would be coming sunday and had to leave sat afternoon and go back to sf, so i missed the rest of the tourney. despite losing by a large margin to dtb on saturday, slackjaw came back against them on sunday and won the tourney! just wish id been there to help out!

sunday was insane with the movers (i'll save that for a whole different post.) but the week flew by and before i knew it, i was banking in van pelt on a thursday afternoon (see previous post). friday - sun morning i was in fredericksburg for fools with the surrogate fam.

some highlights:

seeing everyone i love one last time!
playing with dk again
my favorite asian showing up saturday morning, wasted and ready to kick some ass!
rachel shah
my sister actually showing up. and actually playing (sort of!)
me forgetting to explain the rules to her
going (mostly) undefeated
mae aptly renaming our team "alex united" (how vain is it that i kind of liked it?)
attempting to convince everyone i love to move to the west coast (you're next!)
flip cup!
dance parties with awkward lesbian acquaintences
surprise propositions
rachel shah in hooker heels from target looking gorgeous
clayton telling rachel shah in hooker heels from target that she looked gorgeous
drunk kim krietner
playing a few points with billy!
amanda davis amanda davis amanda davis
a gazillion loose cannonites on one field!
recruiting women to play loose cannon despite not being on the team at all anymore
playing with swat (instead of against them)
lectures from marie (who really does know me better than anyone)
drunk venutians
convincing drunk venutians that women's is soooo much better than coed
sleeping in with the bean
the bean

a fitting tune:

all my friends

and another that just makes me smile. i cant get this song out of my head!
in the night

throwback, baby

sitting in the big chairs at van pelt right now, doing work and watching the kiddies on locust walk. crazy, right?

not much has changed: went to metropolitan for breakfast with jude (nothing new there: crappy service, high prices, but addictive nonetheless. even the granola is the same - im still not that fond of the blueberry addition, but whatever). both jazzy and rachel came by vp earlier and it was great. lots of laughs and giggles. im seeing half familiar faces and slipping into college anonymity. the tabard girls are still outside, though they seem to have relocated on college green. im getting my hair cut at saturn club in an hour, and dreaming of magic carpet for lunch. funny how nice and comfortable it is to slip into familiarity. the only thing really different right now is, im doing actual work and not just stealing people's music, and i live all the way across the country.

old people are mean

this morning an old man yelled at me in public.

i had to wait for three buses this morning, because they were all so packed. finally, i get on and there's a seat close to the driver. i had a big duffel bc im leaving from the office for the airport tonight, and i sat down so i didnt end up blocking the pathway with my giant bag. well, it's hillary's birthday (hello, new reader!) so we were chatting (quietly) during most of the ride. when i got on the bus, it wasnt too packed, but by the time we made it to the financial district, it was pretty busy. once or twice, i thought about standing to let someone else sit, but no one old really came on, and it was pretty much impossible to move with my duffel by my feet.

so anyway, i get off the phone, and by this time the bus has started to clear up a bit. there was a man standing near me, with a backback and some photo equipment, and he was prob in his early 40's. across from me was an elderly black gentleman and surrounding us on the seats were girls who were all about my age. all of a sudden, this old guy is like, "cant you read?!?" and proceeds to yell at me and say that i should have gotten up for the guy with the backpack, and i was rude and doing something illegal. i was like, excuse me, but i always get up for people, and i would have this morning, but it was really packed and i had a big bag. he was a real asshole and basically yelled back, telling me i was lying and just doing what i wanted. it was ridiculous. he basically singled me out among a group of young people to yell at me for something i wasnt really guilty of.

on the upside, everyone else thought he was a cranky old ass. the man with the cameras was like, im sorry, i didnt even know i was a senior! dont even worry about it.... and then this girl i always see got off and said the same thing. i mean, the dude was like 40 and the bus was packed when he got on - he was young, and there was no real way to move and he was pretty surprised when this old guy yelled at me. i was really annoyed but decided it was better to be very nice than snooty. when i got off the bus, the old man was like, have a nice day, and i made sure to say it back very sweetly. asshole.

one of the girls i ride with a lot says this sort of thing happens all the time. god, i love when old people lecture you in public places.

this is the second time it's happened in the recent past, too! i feel like im a really considerate person, and it's sort of disheartening when ppl are unnecessarily mean to you.

i was at o'hare in mid march, on my way out here, and a similar incident occured in the women's restroom. i was waiting for a stall, and one opened, and when i went in, my first thought was, ew, what's with all this paper? that girl who just walked out didnt flush. i didnt call her out on it though (yeah, it's uncool, but im not going to make a big stink), and just flushed it myself. but the toilet was crappy (the pun!), and the seat cover wouldnt flush all the way, so i realized it wasnt actually her fault. i proceed to go pee, flush, and have the same thing happen to me - the seat cover didnt go down. there wasnt much i could do, and i didnt want to clog the darn thing, so i just opened the stall and walked out.

this older black woman was at the front of the line, and started to walk in after me, when i hear "aw now come on!! young lady, you're disgusting, cant you flush?"

the bathroom was pretty full, and everyone heard, so i was really embarrased. i walked back, and was like, ma'am, i did flush! the toilet isnt working well and doesnt flush any more that that! i walked back into the stall, hit the lever, and reiterated that that was as far as it would go. she realized her mistakem and only then did she apologize - and was actually nice about it. still, i was super embarassed - i couldnt believe she'd actually called me out on that.

seriously, all you cranky old people out there who get off on yelling at minors: not everyone a third your age is a hooligan. some of us are nice people who do their best to be considerate of others, including strangers. age is no excuse for being mean.

sir (dame?) mix-a-lot

bay area women's mixer last sat. or two saturdays ago, i guess.

50+ women on the stanford fields where i threw with tommy this summer
four teams: fury, zeitgeist, slackjaw and mayhem
tons of talent
killer weather
im apparently allergic to the grass in the far left corner of the field (i was lil miss sneezy for a while. real hot when youre trying to prove yourself but youre all drippy and stuffed up)
four 20 min drills, each run by a team, then two hours of pickup
so very out of shape
really need to buy a new knee brace (rsd, why couldnt you find me my lost one?? oh the abyss that is sarasota!)
got to play a little with melanie (woohoo! she's looking really good, too. she seems nervous about zG's whole team - tryout deal, but i really dont think she needs to worry.)
met some really cool girls, including my cousin yael's best friend from law school (who captained fury last year. yeah, seriously)
really really excited to be playing ultimate here.
and absolutely terrified at how this whole thing works here.

four teams. four tryout schedules. who knows how many spots there are, and a gazillion girls going out for them. it's intense / i need to get back in shape and start throwing. a lot. im excited, though, the women seem really friendly, and i think no matter where i end up, im going to have fun and learn a lot... we'll see what happens. missing the tryout tourney (DUI april 5thish) could hurt a lot. i guess it's nice to not have to panic about running between teams, but still, it hurts that they arent seeing me play. i think if i were here, id prob try to play mostly with zG and fury, and then a little with slackjaw. though i just met the girl running mayhem and she's awesome. ive heard so many good things about the mayhem leadership, it makes me wonder. it might be really nice to be part of something new, too... oh! and the other mayhem captain is an old isis player. ive heard lots of good things about her, too, but somehow we've never crossed paths...)

ive rambled for far too long.

a quick observation, though: it's incredible how diff the east and west coast are in terms of top / second teir teams. i feel like the difference between the best teams on the east coast (take backhoe for example. okay, maybe im thinking more of the mid atlantic here) and the not-so-good (you know, the ones that tell you no, you cant tryout and there's no more room for practice players, and then get bumped out the first two games of regionals while you proceed to go to nationals with the team that stomps them regularly...) is pretty huge, while out here, yeah, fury is incredible. but then, zG is a semis team, coming off just a year of existence. how sick is that? and then slackjaw, the third team, is full of a bunch of recent graduates who are really laid back and fun. they didnt make nationals, but theyre not so shabby either. played with them this past saturday at fool's west in santa cruz, and though we lost to them on the first day, they went on to beat downtown brown for the win on sunday. granted it was a fun tourney, but dtb = a gazillion squirrelly asians including some ridiculous fury / zG / safari players. and then, mayhem. being formed by an ex-fury player and a girl who took her coed team to win nationals their first year in existence.

i guess wherever i end up, ill be pretty happy. it's hard to handle the tryout process with finesse, esp bc i want to meet as many ppl as possible being new, but in the end, i just want to play ultimate competitively, and it like out here, there's a whole lotta that.