AND JUST A DISCREET SMEAR OF CRIMSON LIPSTICK

If you've ever wondered why I go to Marin County regularly, please wonder no more. It's to get in touch with my people: white folks. You see, most white people in San Francisco are somewhat insane, and either stressed out or partying all the time. In Marin county they lead nice quiet lives, interrupted only for a lungful of healthy marijuana. It's medicinal!

Crazy people often ask for candy.

Whereas, of course, the majority population of this city (being Chinese Americans) seldom party, and never ask for candy. This is what my apartment mate reliably informs me. She's of Chinese ancestry, and in a position to know. She also wonders "if I wear a trenchcoat, will I look like Kermit the Frog?"

There are strange sounds coming from the other side of the table in the teevee room, where she's on her laptop internet shopping. We have separate computers; I'm using this one.

If I were to spend more time in Marin, I'd probably hear nothing but normal boring stuff. That would be too much of a good thing. I thrive on a judicious mixture of San Francisco surreality and that typical Marin County medical dispensary weed and other self-indulgent habits induced blandness.
Those are not for me; Marinites require such sustenance.
It would be tedious if one or the other dominated.
Life should be smorgasbord of stimuli.
Some blandness, some spice.


"Goddammit, I cannot look like a white girl!"


Okay, I think she's just found clothing in pastel colours. Chinese women should probably not wear bland pale garb for blondes, as it makes them look kind of washed out. They require bolder hues. Red sweaters, green scarves, blue raincoats. Or maybe the other way around.
Anyhow, must be an internet shopping site for dull-as-dishwater suburban housewives of the wheatish persuasion. You know, the people who drive minivans filled with monkeys to soccer games. They're in the back seats screaming about Barbie and Dora the Explora, plus Hello Kitty pursies and girl-scout cookies -- or whatever it is that America's eight-year old females find noise-worthy -- and their frayed moms are strung-out on valium, and wearing boring femmy shmatte.


"Man, that's freakin' ugly!"


Finding clothes in petite, of a suitable vividness for a Chinese American female with good taste, is a constant struggle. No, Chinatown is not a shopping option; many women there have Hong Kong style ideas, or alternatively a 'Rice-Paddies of Toishan sensibility'. Either choice yields rather garish patterns, unpleasant colour schemes, and clothing advice that encourages startling mix-and-match combinations.
If you're going to wear raspberry and black zebra-stripe leggings, you MUST have a puce top, and a zesty little plaid hat! Or: flower patterned sweatpants paired with solid yellow hoodies. As well as a Louis Vuitton bag.
Your choice of either klunky sneakers or four inch heels.

I think it's so that they can scare tourists.

I'm rather white; it also scares me.


Still, I prefer the self-assured tackiness of Chinatown to the pablum-ish blandness of Marin. Some people over there are very white indeed, and dream entirely in tofu and wheatgrass.

Too much Marin makes me itch.




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