Late night at King of Thai.

Today I was so tired when I got home I face planted on my bed and passed out. Woke up pretty groggy. Talked on the phone a little bit. Got a call from the previous tenant, and I arranged to get her deposit back to her. Didn't have dinner so I was kinda hungry. Called up Ryan. We decided to go to King of Thai. Had a Sopporo and pad kee mao. Dinner of champions. Ok, maybe not so much so.

Got home, played a couple of games of Starcraft. Lost one, won one. Got online again. Hmm...what else have I been up to lately...

At work, I got handed a couple more responsibilities. The first is a pretty big one, I'm going to be taking over the newsletter. I already write the company newsletter, which delivers to all of our customers. But now I'm gonna be holding monthly meetings to gather information from all the product managers, writing copy, coordinating with our designers and production, scheduling reviews, and finalizing the newsletter. Pretty cool stuff, since it is more marketing related, and not just creative.

Second, we have a big project coming up having to do with our welcome emails. Basically, once a customer signs up for our service, we send them a few tutorials on frequently used features. We're gonna be adding in some extra bells and whistles to add to the effectiveness to those emails. While it's going to be a lot of work, it should be a pretty interesting project.

Some other things going on, but whatevers. Lol.

Sydney is coming home this weekend. I'm going to be watching him for the month of November. So it should be fun getting reacquainted with him. Aside from that, looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

I've been drinking a little more lately. Friday night went out with some guys to a lounge. Was pretty beat Saturday, then Sunday decided to meet up with a friend for an evening beer with Brian. What started out as one beer, turned into 6-7 beers and half a pack of cigarettes, as we were dragged up to the upstairs room, and ended up singing karaoke for 5 hours (that explains my drunken karaoke post the other night.) Then last night, went out with Brian again, this time to Hooters in San Bruno. Man. Hooters is freaking disgusting. Deep fried pickles. Nacho tater tots. 4 pints of beer (4 pitchers total). And a Western BBQ burger. I wanted to get out of there early since I was so stuffed, but we had to stick around since some of the guys had the all you can eat wings. Gross. I still felt kinda full when I woke up...

Feeling a little brain dead. Also my passport comes in next monday. That should be cool. Hmmm...I guess that's about it for now. Ciao.

In 1995

I auditioned for a jazz acapella choir at George Washington High School. It was my senior year. I was inspired by brother, who under the tutelage of one Mr. Ray, developed a voice that still inspires me today. After Mr. Ray retired, there was a new, young, and ambitious teacher who took his place. As time has passed, I can't even remember her name.

I had seen the poster on butcher paper and permanent marker on the wall. I wanted to join. I auditioned with the song, Please Don't Go, by Boyz II Men. The teacher was impressed. It could have been a simple lack of male vocalists that wanted to sign up. Whatever it was, they put me on the choir. In 1996, after several months of rehearsals and performances, we entered into a Pacific Northwest Jazz competition in Seattle Washington. Our group took first place.

I've always loved singing. Songs by R&B groups like Color Me Badd, Shai, and Hi-Five were all the rage. There was a sweetness to their harmonies and a strength in a sound that came from the streets I wanted to emulate. I wasn't that great at reading music, but I eventually memorized the harmonies. Learned about time signatures. Had a general understanding of measures and notes. Crescendos. Falsetto. Vibrato. They were all terms that I had a feel for, but didn't have a name for. I learned how to sing from my diaphragm. How to properly enunciate syllables. To exaggerate my t's and take staggered breaths between phrases to maintain a continuous sound. It was fun learning how to control my own voice.

Sure, I never actually wished to perform as a recording artist. But I have to say the arts did enrich my life. Gave me an appreciation for voice that many people enjoy, but few can articulate. It aided with my graduate study of poetry. And turned me into a karaoke mic hog.

Some of the nights I'll never forget were in K-town NYC, singing karaoke. Either with coworkers, when somebody was leaving the company. Nights filled with a kal-bi dinner and soju. Or with friends for birthday celebrations, or simply a night out. To properly strike notes. To know how to strike a chord with another voice, either cause I knew knew the harmony to a song somebody was singing by heart, or simply out of gut instinct. It was a lot of fun.

One of the bars that I frequent in San Francisco, Firefly Sportsbar, has a private room upstairs with an excellent sound system, a plasma screen, and a karaoke machine. They don't even charge cover, if you know the bartenders there, you get access. The past couple times I've gone with one of my high school friends, who's a regular, people from the bar drag us up. And once I get the mic, I get to do my thing.

Tonight was a similar night. I enter in a few songs here and there. I belt out notes till my voice goes horse. Wait for my voice to get a second or third wind and belt some more. Absolute strangers are hollering. We clink glasses, swig our beer, and sing. The Bee Gees. Michael Jackson. Jimmy Eat World. We'll sing whatever we can remember. And it's perfect.

Long after my friend decided to call it a night, and after most of the people cleared out of the room, there were just four of us left. One chick, dressed for summertime, who loved to sing, but was clearly off key, entered Take a Bow by Madonna.

"Give me the mic, I'll sing the guy part."

"What? I didn't even know there was a guy part?"

"Trust me, it's Madonna and Babyface, I know this song by heart."

And we sang it. The room. The dusty ashtrays and empty beer glasses, remnants of foam slipping to their bases. The lights. The empty street, diagonal stripped lines of perpendicular parking spaces, slicing up Noriga street. The rows of houses stacked like books on a slanted shelf, all the way towards the Pacific Ocean. The misty, Indian summer sky exhaling with a chill of night. It all seemed to disappear.

It was her voice, completely untrained, off-key and full of joy. And mine, singing backup lines, somehow steering her voice on course. Till it was just the two of us enjoying music together. Like two strangers at Ocean Beach, in silent, platonic acknowledgement of a beautiful sunset.

After that, I called it a night. Gave her a hug, shook hands and got the names of strangers I can't remember. Hopped in my roadster and sped home.

I love singing. When I'm on my game, and with a relaxed voice, lubricated with alcohol can hit all the notes I strain to hit in the shower, or in the car during the commute to work. Or when I'm completely drunk, vocal chords burning with a build up of lactic acid, not unlike muscles recovering the day after a strenuous workout. And now that I'm home, I thought I'd write it out.

There's a Mexican on my roof!

I wake up to a loud noise. Could be footsteps on the roof. Or maybe the new tenants downstairs unloading boxes. I look at the clock, it's 3AM. Probably not the tenants. I hear a crack give in the ceiling. Maybe it's the neighbors across smoking pot on the roof. Who knows.

I go to the other bedroom, where the window opens up to the fire escape landing, to see if it's the neighbors. Their window's closed. I listen. Nothing. Then I see a pair of sneakers coming down the fire escape ladder.

"Hey, who are you?"

The sneakers scamper up the ladder.

Without hesitation, I yank off the window screen and give chase. At the top, it's completely dark. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust. Then I see a silhouette of a dude, lying face down on the very corner of the apartment building—three floors up—trying to hide in the shadows.

"What the fuck are you doing up here?"

He gets up, walks towards me slowly and apologizes profusely. "I'm sorry, I have no where to go. Please let me leave. I'm very sorry."

I look at his face. He's a hispanic guy, maybe 5'7" or so, dressed in a baggy grey sweatshirt and faded baggy black jeans. Short hair, slicked back. Round face with a neatly trimmed goatee.

"Leave. Go back the way you came and get the fuck out of here. Don't ever come back."

He mumbles out a few apologies. I quickly get back into my apartment and slam the window behind me.

Did that just happen?

I grab the phone. Dial 911. Looking for my keys. What should I do? The dispatcher picks up. I tell the tell her what happened and give a description. She says she's sending a patrol car over over.

A few moments pass. I slip on my shoes and go downstairs to check if the other tenants are OK. By the time I get downstairs, I can see the squad car pull up from behind the frosted glass on the garage door. I open it up and let them in.

They do a quick inspection and check out the roof. My first thought was that the dude must've come in from the backyard, which opens directly into my garage, and has access to the fire escape. But while the cops survey the roof with their Maglites, one of the cops finds a three-foot gap on the second floor landing that leads directly to the roof next door. He climbs down the fire escape, hops over, and takes a look. I hear the other cop who's still on my roof, "Be careful. It makes my stomach sick watching you down there."

Nothing. The dude is long gone.

As I'm showing the cops out of my apartment, they say that since I confronted the guy, chances are he's not gonna come back. I realize the cop talking to me is a lot younger than me. His partner looks like a buff Kendra Wilkinson. Pretty hot.

They leave my apartment. I follow behind them and tell them good night as I close the garage door.

When I get back to my apartment, I'm shaking. That guy could've had a knife. There could've been other dudes downstairs unloading stuff. Who knows. I knew that if something happened to me and I yelled out the window by the fire escape, most of my tenants would hear me since their bedrooms are right next to the fire escape. But when I saw those sneakers panic and shoot up the ladder, I threw all caution out the window. My instant reaction was to chase.

I get on my computer. Play some Starcraft. Lie in bed. Play some Words with Friends on my iPhone. By the time my eyes start closing, it's already 5AM. I write on twitter "WTF, I found a Mexican on my roof!" I think to myself that sounds kinda racist. Who knows, maybe he was from Guatemala. Or Honduras. To my one half-Mexican friend on Twitter, "@chrisalverez I hope it wasn't one of your homies trying to steal my flatscreen TV!"

I pass out.

God, what a night.

Weird thoughts driving home.

Driving home during the commute is a crazy thing. Although some Bay Area arteries serve tens of thousands of commuters daily, you actually don't come across that many people heading in the same direction as you. Take highway 5 for instance. You could easily stay with two or three packs of cars for an entire seven hours or more.

Anyway, I've driven a lot. Clocked a lot of miles driving back and forth from schools, colleges, from S.F. to L.A. and S.F. to Eugene. My guess is over 200k miles. There are a couple things you notice about the flow of traffic:

- When you hit a traffic jam, the fast lane is the first to slow down.

- Aggressively cutting lanes gets you nowhere, unless you can cut a clear path three lane changes ahead or less.

- It's good to know which exit lanes take you back on the freeway, so you can exit and reenter.

- Exit lanes are also good to ride in during a traffic jam, you just have to get back into the flow of traffic before you hit the end of the lane.

I've also identified a few different kinds of drivers:

The Drone - Most drivers fit under this category. They're generally safe, but they also don't pay that much attention to the road. They simply want to get from point A to point B.

The Liability - Like the done, only dumber. Sometimes they make lane changes without signaling or looking, they just start drifting. Or they're more focused on their phones or their makeup. Or they're just old. Or they're drunk.

The Scowler - I've been running into these guys a lot lately. 98% of them are male. Enjoys driving and takes it competitively at times. Are generally good, focused drivers unless on tilt.

The Reckless Adrenalin Junkie - These are pretty rare. They usually look like they're literally bouncing in their seat, almost nervously, with their hands at the 11:30/12:30 position, like they're flying like Superman. Or sometimes they're singing at the top of their lungs, to the point where their eyes are literally shut with passion. These guys scare the shit out of me, and I try to stay as far away from them as possible.

I actually have a lot more to write and rant about commuting.

Today I was in a weird mood. For once, I actually had too much energy, having recouped my sleep from Vegas, and buzzing off a few cups of coffee. The top was down. Was practicing my downshifting, zipping around traffic like a zipper on a vinyl raincoat. I was head banging. Making a few cuts here and there. Tried pulling ahead, but didn't make the third cut. Put the top up, rolling into a stop at a red after breaking into the San Francisco fog. A little restless. Having a little fun.

Sometimes the world is so beautiful and crazy. Even on a commute.

So my oft delayed trip to Vegas

is finally over.

Yes, there was a lot of drinking.
Yes, we hit the buffet.
Yes, we were up till four in the morning.
No, I didn't hit the jackpot.
No, I didn't meet any ladies.
But I still consider myself lucky.

We stayed at the Palazzo, my first time there. I met some new people, and mostly hung out with a group of friends from Oregon. It's always a good thing when chance brings new people into your life. Had my first taste playing craps. Spent a tiny bit of time by the pool. Ate and drank and ate and drank and smoked like a chimney. The heat wasn't very overbearing. And overall, we had a good time.

The sweet light of a Nevada afternoon, like a fragrant, cut mango
focused on the rims of glasses and melting ice cubes,
sparkling chrome finishes and countless sheets of glass
on the facades of one resort to the next. The faint chip of the moon
hangs over the desert sky, the bustling freight trucks crossing
dusty interstate 15, the hustling call girls, designer gowns and spiked heels
sinking into the floral swirl of carpet pulled into the horizon. 

I saw a lot of couples, some dressed up, as if in costume, playing the part of some dramatic snapshot in a Chanel spread. And the fool in me was a little envious, thinking how nice it'd be to burn through a chunk of savings on things we don't need, during the only time in our lives where we'd appreciate such things. A fine glass of wine. Diamonds. A handful of cash tossed onto a velvet tabletop, and the ridiculous hopes that it would multiply.

I also thought of my family. The several trips we've taken. Walking the same marble-lined corridors dressed like tourists at Disneyland, eating at the same over-priced restaurants as we did years before, appreciating that time in a way I didn't appreciate back then.

And the zombie afternoon. Dragging our feet down the strip, after a late checkout that's never late enough, nursing our hangovers with our fatigue, hauling our bags back to the taxistand, and waiting for time to expire at the airport food court, still full, just people watching and waiting for the somnambulant flight home.

I guess that was the weekend in a nutshell.

Busy day.

Bunch of things to do today after work. Here's my list:

Laundry.

Dishes

Pack for Vegas.

Print passport forms.

Take out trash.

Call Allstate to have them send proof of insurance.

Prepare invoices.

Pay bills.

Pay back deposit check.

Still many things to do...

The 4th floor bathroom.

If potty humor isn't your thing, don't bother reading this post.

So my company resides on the 5th floor of a 5-story building. When I first started working here, it felt really spacious. There were still a lot of empty cubes, and our cubes were pretty generously sized.

Fast forward 8 months, and now I sit in the refugee pit.

I call it the refugee camp, cause really, these cubes are pretty depressing. It's a six-cube structure, similar to what you'd find in a college library, that was built where there used to be lounge chairs. Each desk is only about 2.5"x4", with partitions. Behind my seat, there's a lot of foot traffic, people on the way to conference rooms and execs, who's offices are now only 10-20 feet away from me.  Oh what fun.

And that's reflective of the entire office. The cube section where I used to sit has been transformed into rows of desk space for our sales team. What used to seat nine people now seats 20. Even all the executive offices are full. In one, they had to break down the tables so they could cram two high-level managers in one office.

After a while, project managers start ignoring conference room reservations. The higher up the food chain you are, the higher priority you get. So instead, we've had to make due with holding conference calls in our refugee camp.

Then there are the bathrooms.

There are two bathrooms on our floor, one for men, one for women. In the men's room there are two urinals and two stalls. Not bad when I first got here, but now there have been a few times you walk into the bathroom and both stalls are taken. Not cool.

One day I thought to myself, what's on the fourth floor?

There are several empty commercial spaces down there, with open access to the bathroom. The bathroom there has a similar layout to ours, but somebody installed a privacy liner along the hinges of the stalls, so there's no awkward eye contact. Plus one of the toilet seats is flat, so when you put on the toilet liner, it doesn't automatically fall into the toilet.

So for a good two months or so, I could find a safe haven in the fourth floor bathroom. No interruptions. No intrusions. And all the time in the world to hide out and check out the latest apps on my iPhone.

Then something strange started happening. I'd run into a stray member of the sales team in the stairwell talking on the phone. I'd walk by a customer service rep on my way into the bathroom, who was on his way out of the bathroom. We both let out a laugh. Next it was a director. Today, there was another guy from our office brushing his teeth in there. And somebody in the stall next to me while we were both doing our business.

Sadly, the fourth floor bathroom is no longer a secret.

And as our company continues to expand, it just doesn't look like it's going to get any better. First it was our cubes. Now it's our toilets. Who knows what our office is going to be losing next?

Life is just so crazy.

I think the next year is going to be very big for me. For a number of reasons. My one-year at RingCentral is coming up, all the units are rented out, and then there's being single. Who knows how long that's gonna last?

The past few months has been especially tumultuous, but I think things are starting to plateau. Break-ups are tough. Breaking up out of cohabiting relationships are even tougher. But in the end, it was for the best. And I do wish her the best.

Anyway, I'm not sure what's the point of this blog anymore. I mean, it's nice to keep the one or two people that regularly read my blog updated about my life. But over the past few weeks especially, I've found it difficult to write about the stuff that's really interesting in my life cause of how personal it is.

Is there a point to it?

Right after my break up, things were pretty crazy. It was like jumping out of a rattled cage out of a plane flying over the Himalayas. Like somebody took the TV set of my brain and flipped through all the channels at once. It was exciting. It was terrifying. And now things have finally started to slow down.

One random thought I had for today. I was at dim sum with my family today. And strange, I saw three people from high school in the same restaurant. Didn't feel like I was in the mood to say hi, though. Just acquaintances. Two of them had kids. One of them was a little dwarf of a freshman when I was a senior. Now he's a big dwarf.

Driving back home, past our old high school, kids were throwing a carwash fundraiser. Man, high schoolers are tiny people. And to think, we used to be those kids 15 years ago. Holding up FREE CARWASH signs. Hanging out on the corners. One kid smoking a cigarette. The other flirting with a girl. Just teenagers on a hot day hanging out.

It all changes so fast.

Feelings.

I've been thinking about them a lot lately. In fact, some people would call me a sensitive guy. And they're right. I've always been one to reflect on how I feel about things, and why I feel the way I do. I also throw caution to the wind when diving head first into relationships. Things don't always turn out the way I'd want them to, but whatever, it's the way I do things. And looking back, I always end up having fun.

You wouldn't know that when I'm down and out though. I can be pretty bitter at times. Share the storm clouds over my head with everyone around me. To the point where it gets awkward. And I kinda regret putting that on my friends.

Anyway, these past few months in particular have had a lot of crazy ups and downs. Like super highs and super lows. Lots of confusion. Recalibrating how I think about feelings and relationships. And more head first dives into empty pools of craziness.

I was talking to a friend the other day that said she didn't know how to handle me when I get too deep. "You're like a girl," she says. "Guys aren't supposed to be in touch with their feelings."

"You're right!" I tell her with a laugh. "I guess you're just gonna have to learn how to deal with me."

Which isn't to say that I'm all sappy shit these days. I downloaded BT's newest album the other day, These Hopeful Machines. It's a big improvement over his last album, This Binary Universe, which was a self-indulgent experimental electronica orgy. Machines, however, gets a big sentimental at times, where he writes a lot about love, about filling you up, and even has his kid singing the chorus for the song Forget Me. This album doesn't have the same emotional scope as his 2003 masterpiece, Emotional Technology, which still ranks as one of my favorite albums of all time (and is still worth a download if you've never listened to BT). But as a double-length album, I appreciate Machine's ambition, and I'm down for two hours of new music to cruise to.

I guess the thing I've been looking for especially in music these days, is a bit of a harder edge, of more earned emotional substance. None of this mopey girly shit. Music with some teeth. I think about the new self-titled album from Interpol. It's not their best work, but there's something I love about the almost percussive guitar rhythms. It's got drive, it's got momentum, it oozes confidence. I really dig that.

So how do these two things tie together, my fluffy feelings vs. my appreciation for harder music?

Sometimes you have to risk sentimentality in order to achieve sentiment.

A common theme that I've been getting from a lot of friends is to have fun. Live for myself for a change. And I dig that too. Stop caring so much about what other people think while still living responsibly. All the boundaries will figure themselves out. Live without apologizing for my feelings. Live without fear.