On Thursday night I sat by myself on the couch and watched The Apprentice. NakedDave doesn’t watch the show with me because he just doesn’t really care for TV in general and reality shows in particular. So, he was upstairs doing something on the computer and I sat and watched. And I got sick to my stomach. And hives. I couldn’t stand Carolyn and I couldn’t stand Amy and I really couldn’t stand Donald Trump. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I am just not cut out for the corporate world.
I have played in the corporate world for a long time. Longer than I should have, probably. I know how to play the games. But, quite frankly, I don’t even like that I know how to play the games. I think you all know me well enough to know that I’m a really honest person. That I also tell you exactly what I’m thinking and feeling. My best girlfriend from high school, Lydia with the Glorious Boobs, used to tell everyone at school that if they wanted an honest opinion about the clothes they were wearing or their hair style they should just ask me. And it’s true. I’ve always been that way. I’m not good at sugar coating things. If you’re wearing a butt ugly outfit, I’m going to tell you. And if you’re marketing idea stinks, well, I’m going to tell you that it stinks. But by the same token, if you do something brilliant, I’m going to be the one leading the parade in your honor!
Anyway, I realized on Thursday night that if I applied for The Apprentice and somehow actually got on the show, then I was signing up for more corporate drudgery. That’s not where I want my life to go. I’m forty years old for goodness sakes. I have spent the last twenty of them in the corporate world. It’s time to move on to something new. It’s time to truly go after the things that I’m passionate about and embrace the intuitive and holistic side of myself and see what happens. It’s time to make a change!
On Friday morning, however, I still was not completely convinced that I wasn’t going to actually apply because after all I LIKE TO WIN! So, I filled out the application, considered baking cookies to serve during the interview process and went to the beauty supply store for some pink hair dye. My hair is now a multitude of pinks. It’s actually very cool. By the time Gail arrived to go off to San Francisco, I had finally convinced myself I wasn’t going to apply. So we hopped in the car and zoomed up to the W in San Francisco to have a totally fun Girls Night Out.
Gail had never stayed in a W hotel before and she was really impressed. The San Francisco W is actually one of their nicer hotels, I think. The rooms are much larger than most of the other W’s. The lobby was already overflowing with the requisite beautiful people, but this being San Francisco there were a few transvestites thrown in for good measure. Fun!
Our room had a terrific view of the Bay Bridge and most of the Financial District. Since Gail had never been to San Francisco before she insisted on riding a trolley car. Which we did. From Market to Fisherman’s Wharf. It was actually lovely as the sun was setting over San Francisco Bay and cast the city in a warm cheery glow. When we got to Fisherman’s Wharf, I warned Gail that while it is a tourist destination in San Francisco, it’s never a place people who actually live there would go. She immediately understood what I meant. I did take the opportunity to celebrate Naked Friday, however, and stripped down to have my picture taken on the wharf with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. People were walking by, but no one really even stopped except for one man who was driving by and had to do a U-turn to come back and get a closer look at what was going on.
Pictures done (will hopefully share these soon...I'm waiting for Gail to give them to me), I put my clothes back on and we headed to a bus to take us back to Market Street. We changed buses there and our next stop was Haight Ashbury. I needed to go commune with my people.
We had a terrific time wandering about and I showed her the various flats where I used to live and all my old local haunts. At one point we found ourselves in a store called Ambiance that literally supplied me with all my clothes when I lived in San Francisco. They were having a customer appreciation party complete with appetizers and champagne, so we took the opportunity to have a bit of both. Gail declared the store was like being in the inside of Sarah Jessica’s closet and actually she’s not far off. Even the shoes are SATC worthy. Funny part is, I shopped there for everything before SATC even existed.
We walked from the Haight to Hayes Valley because we wanted to go eat sushi at this place. It was a longer walk than I remembered, but fortunately it was all downhill. However, when we got to the sushi place we found that it only sat about seven people. Our friend, SassyJen, had recommended this place and we were really looking forward to it. However, not only did it seat about seven people, but there were about twenty people waiting ahead of us. We were quite perplexed.
I remembered that there is a Blowfish Sushi restaurant in San Francisco, so I called information and got the address. Before we headed over there, though, we went next door to Citizen Cake and got desserts to go. My oh my, those desserts are deadly. We didn’t dig into them until nearly 1:00 a.m. and neither of us could even begin to think about finishing our little cakes. After purchasing the cakes we found a cab right away and LateNightLarry drove us to Blowfish all the while entertaining us with stories of his adventures of being a cab driver.
The sushi at Blowfish was perfect. Fast, delicious and since Gail doesn’t eat avocado either she’s the perfect sushi partner. We inhaled the sushi and then decided we would attempt to make it back downtown to the Metreon to catch Taking Lives. Blowfish Sushi is in a very industrial part of San Francisco. Literally no mans land with just warehouses. During the DotCom era, it was a hopping, jumping neighborhood. Now, totally dead. I suggested to Gail that we walk over to Mission Street and attempt to find a bus. As we were walking that direction we found a cab! Glorious!
This cab driver drove like he was auditioning for a role on the Streets of San Francisco. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom and suddenly we were standing outside the Metreon. We got tickets and made it inside the theatre in time to catch the previews, my favorite part.
Now, I won’t ruin Taking Lives for those of you who have not seen it yet, but let me tell you it is one of the most fucked up and twisted movies I have seen in a long time. I don’t think I’ve been that scared in a movie since Silence of the Lambs. Jeepers.
Left there at midnight, contemplated jumping in to see Eternal Sunshine, decided not to do so and walked back to the W. Used the Whatever Whenever button to have plates and forks and napkins delivered to the room to consume cake. Used it again to have them bring toothpaste. I wish all homes could have a Whatever Whenever button. It is one of the best reasons for staying at the W.
We decided before going to sleep that we would sleep in and then make our way to the Apprentice auditions. Got up and out of the W around 11:00. Over to the auditions where there were at least a thousand people in line. Was now really glad that I wasn’t applying! Chatted with a bunch of folks on line. My oh my were they all decked out in their finest attire. There was one woman who was wearing a Chanel suit, carrying a huge LV briefcase and wearing the most fabulous shoes. Hair, makeup, all perfect. She looked like a magazine photo of the corporate lady who lunches. All she was missing was her little dog. In a way, she was TOO polished. She looked like she might eat you up and swallow you for breakfast. There was another black guy there with amazing dreadlocks who was so handsome. And he was wearing this beautiful Armani suit. I told him he deserved to get chosen just because women all over America would tune in just to watch him. He laughed.
There was another guy there with BLUE hair. I had my photo taken with him. And another guy came up to me and told me that I was smart to make my hair WORSE than Donald Trumps! I told him my hair was always some weird color and this wasn’t a gimmick. He tried to backtrack…but I also told him I wasn’t even there to apply because I was finished with the corporate world. I wished him luck. He was very much a NICK type.
For the most part the entire crowd was very young. I saw maybe three people who were my age or older. Because it was San Francisco, a huge number of the people there were Asian. I would imagine they’ll have at least one Asian person in the next season. Hard to know exactly who will make it. And to think that there were over 1,000 people there and they’re doing this all over the country and they only take 16 folks.
I did tell one group of people that I had already applied for all of Mark Burnett’s other shows. And they asked me who Mark Burnett was! Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but if you were applying to be on the Apprentice, especially, wouldn’t you do some research and find out who the producer of the show was? This is an interview folks. From the very first second you start standing in line this is an interview.
We stayed there about thirty minutes and then found our way back to Fillmore and Haight where we had breakfast, but not without a quick spin through Pacific Heights first. Then I took Gail to get some very good views of the Golden Gate Bridge and I drove her through Golden Gate Park. We finally left San Francisco around 3:00 and were home in Santa Cruz by 4:00. PHEW!
I came home to a hung over NakedDave. My husband does not drink. At all. Neither of us do, really. I drank my way through college and my twenties and realized when I hit thirty that I certainly wasn’t doing myself any favors with alcohol so I just basically quit. I still will drink occasionally, but it’s rare. NakedDave has never been a drinker. At all. I think he spent too much of his life having to be “in control” and so he chose never to really drink or do drugs. But on Friday night he went out drinking with his friend Scott. I guess he got drunk enough to actually throw up. Silly boy.
It was a beautiful day so we decided to go for a walk. Walked to a park and talked to the ducks and then ran into a few people we knew. Chatted. Decided to call Matt and Lisa and see what they were doing. Made plans for Mobo Sushi and the Ladykillers later that night. At Mobo we ran into more people we knew so it became an instant party. More fun!
I enjoyed the movie. “You brought your bitch to the Waffle House?” will now become my new inquisitive line. I laughed hard. Afterwards we all chatted about screenwriting for a bit and what scripts are hot right now and then home. Bed.
Sunday found NakedDave at tennis and me out buying pounds and pounds of chocolate chips for the cookie baking for all of you. I also did some research on the bounced check and found out it is a felony and I have to turn it over to the police if I want to get paid. I will be calling the owner of the company to tell him this today. I may be able to at least get him to pay me that money to avoid having the police knock on his door.
NakedDave spent the rest of the day working which made me sad since it was again an incredible day. I cooked salmon and couscous and fresh asparagus for dinner, plopped myself on the couch to watch the Sopranos where I was surprised to see my boyfriend playing the college counselor and then watched The Practice. I love James Spader and I hope this doesn’t mean that he’s now gone forever.
This morning I went to Jazzercise, had lunch with an old coworker who moaned and groaned about the horrid state of affairs at the office and that now brings us to this very moment where I am typing all of this to you! If you’ve read this far you’ve obviously been doing your exercises! Go you! A prize for fortitude!
There's been loads of wonderful talk and questions regarding my Colon Cleanse. Will post answers and more details soon. But I wanted to share all of this with all of you since you all have been so patient with me as I've waffled about on my application process.
No Apprentice for me. But then, I've already been there, done that and I've got the t-shirt!
