PurpAnd

I was in East Palo Alto today for work. East Palo Alto is its own city and has been for 40 years or so. Unlike adjacent Palo Alto (where Stanford University is located), its reputation is not so prestigious. In 1992, EPA had the highest murder rate per capita in the country. It has since been cleaned up, but it is still on the road to becoming a desirable burb for those who currently live in Palo Alto or nearby Menlo Park.

I was walking along one of the streets today with a coworker when we were solicited by a group of four guys sitting in a van. They asked if we wanted to be investors in a new rap music label. We stopped to ask a few questions and the ringleader explained that they were born and raised in EPA and they were just trying to put the West Bay on the map, as far as rap music goes. He was a nice enough guy, but we declined to drop any dough into the project. As we walked away I wondered why they were sitting in their van trying to find funding rather than driving around or handing out demos or whatever. Seems like a poorly thought out marketing plan, but maybe they are just getting started. If they were to just cross the creek into Palo Alto they would find all sorts of available money. Problem is most of the Palo Alto residents are likely not the rap music crowd.

Literally right across the creek from this neighborhood you will find multi-million dollar mini-mansions. Doctors, venture capitalists, and fancy pants science guys live along the tree-lined street heading straight into the Stanford campus. From an apartment complex in East Palo Alto where the rent is probably $1,000 or so for a one-bedroom unit, you can see into the yard of a mini-mansion with a mortgage payment of probably 10x that much.

I’ve never come across such a difference within such a short distance. In San Francisco, desirable areas turn to undesirable areas within a couple blocks, but the differences aren’t as great as the ones I saw in Palo Alto. The two towns are separated by a creek, but it might as well be an ocean.

If you don’t like beer, bars, or boys being boys, you probably won’t like this post…

Last Friday my friend from San Diego flew up to hang out with me here in the City. He and I were gonna hit a couple of good restaurants, maybe go see the photo exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art, and pretty much just take it easy.

I had enough time between work and his arrival Friday night that my coworker and I caught a movie (The Hurt Locker - pretty good portrayal of an anti-IED crew in Iraq, in my opinion). I met him at his hotel shortly after he arrived in the Financial District. As I dropped my stuff off and headed to the bathroom to refresh, two more of my friends jumped out to surprise me! This was greatly unexpected. One of them had just been in SF two days earlier and the other had flown up from Irvine.

What was planned as a slow SF touristy weekend quickly morphed into a guys weekend out in the City. After posting up at the hotel lounge for a quick bite and beverage, we headed out to some old favorite spots… first, Kate O’Brien’s - an Irish bar that specializes in Guinness, Jameson, and loud music. We were there for a short time, but it was long enough to witness two different girls fall on the floor. It was only a little after 11pm at that point. Recognizing trouble, we took off.

From Kate’s we went to the Thirsty Bear just up the street. This is a solid microbrew that also serves Spanish tapas. Mmmm. Although we weren’t hungry, we thought a nice cold one would serve us well. Unfortunately, the bartender informed us that they had stopped serving only 10 minutes earlier. Ugh.

A little further up the street is the W Hotel. Off the lobby is the XYZ bar, a poshy little club-like lounge that seems to cater to the sophisticated, more well-to-do crowd. Sensing they could use some non-poser influence of a few guys from the Central Valley, we strolled to the bar and ordered what four Valley boys order in places like that - Bud Light followed by kamikazes.

Now, we aren’t as young as we once were and by this time we were all feeling a bit exhausted. We called it a night at 12:30.

Saturday morning we hung out a bit at the farmer’s market near the Ferry Building. We had lunch plans at Dosa on Fillmore so we didn’t stay at the market for long. Dosa is incredible southern Indian food. Southern Indian food has all the goodness of Indian food but with the added flair of serving it in crepe-like things. Perfect.

After lunch we took a brief trip to Coit Tower, since some of us had never seen it up close, and then headed back downtown for FroYo and a showing of the Hangover. Yes, I’ve seen it three times and that may be just a little ridiculous, but it’s so funny to me.

Saturday night included dinner at House of Nanking near Jackson Square and Chinatown. This place consistently has a line out the door and Saturday was no exception. It was probably the best Chinese food I’ve had in years.

After dinner we met up with a couple other friends and tried to go to Momo’s near AT&T Park. Unfortunately, Kenny Chesney was playing that night so we couldn’t get a parking spot near the place. So instead we went to 21st Amendment in South of Market. This is another restaurant/microbrew place that is pretty solid. We ended up staying here for a while, watching the concert crowd file in and then slowly dissipate. This was our last stop and we managed to stay out until last call (maybe I was wrong earlier about the being old part, yay for us).

Heading home that night I thought about how great a weekend it was and how lucky I am to have friends that are willing to travel to see me when I can’t go see them. This weekend was planned for me and my friends did a fantastic job keeping me entertained. Well done guys and thanks.

Let’s talk about anger for a moment. I’m anger-averse… I don’t get angry very often and don’t like it when I do… I rarely yell and I avoid conflict. I’ve become rather good at suppressing my anger and I no longer have a close relationship with it. However, I’ve been interested lately in figuring it out and I think it’s healthy that I do.

My MO has been to take any anger, tuck it away, and avoid expressing it at all. This is because my perception is that an angry person is not a nice person and I try very hard to be a nice person. I feel that if I get angry it would not be attractive and it would push people away.

The problem with this, of course, is that the anger isn’t avoided completely. It manifests itself in other ways, but not in ways that resemble anger, outward anger at least. For example, I’m a chronic teeth grinder/clencher, I’m horrible at saying no and setting boundaries, and I think I enjoy hard rock music a little too much (my sister calls it ‘angry white boy music’).

I am not without the occasional outburst, however. Most recently, I was exiting a parking garage with my sister in the car and the automatic arm wouldn’t go up. As the line of cars grew behind me, a few started honking. My window was down and I yelled out, “I can’t do anything about it!” I had a few other choice words and I’m pretty sure I freaked my sister out a bit. The attendant eventually came to rescue us and we were on our way, but I felt horrible. Horrible for yelling at people, horrible for scaring my sister, and I regreted every bit of it. For a normal person, I imagine this wouldn’t have been as big of an issue, but I suspect that the freak-out was a consequence and evidence of some pent up feelings. When I think of this, I imagine a glass filling with water and eventually the glass gets full with no where else to go except to overflow.

The good thing is that I am recognizing all this now and not later in life. I can’t imagine what further damage I would do if I let this go for 5, 10, or 20 more years.

I’m now actively managing my boundaries and saying no to some things (still difficult though). I’m embracing angry feelings and am trying to diffuse them in healthy ways (exercise, discussion, etc.) As far as the teeth clenching goes, I’m still struggling with that, but I’ve at least become aware that I do it and I can try to focus on not doing it.

So why do I write about this? Well, I’m not ashamed to be exploring this stuff. I’ve learned a lot about myself over the past year and I’ve been able to share a lot of it with you. Maybe something I write will strike a chord with you and motivate you to do some introspection. Maybe what I write describes someone you know. This may be the spark to a dialogue within yourself or with someone close to you. I guess though, to put it simply, sharing it is just better than not sharing it.