There comes a point in every burrito eating experience where one’s immediate gastronomical future hangs in the balance – the Point of No Return.

To understand this phenomenon, you must be a lover of Mexican food, and intimately familiar with at least a few “bomb-ass burrito spots”.  Or just Chipotle.  You must also be something less than a complete monster or yoked bro that easily consumes an entire super burrito without a moment’s notice.  You should also be something more than a teeny-tiny little person who would never consider eating an entire Chipotle burrito at once.

The burrito experience is, to me, delightful.  I love feeling the warm weight of a good burrito in my hands.  I enjoy peeling back the foil and taking that first bite.  I especially like quality cheese in my burrito – coupled with the right amount of salsa, beans, rice, and grilled chicken breast, there’s nothing like it.  I rarely start a burrito without a good appetite, and the hand-held, compact nature of a burrito lends itself to rapid consumption.  “Inhaling” is often an apt descriptor for me eating a burrito.  I’m chugging along, really enjoying myself, taking careful bites, rotating the burrito as I peel back the foil, when all of a sudden I reach the point of no return.

The point of no return is located approximately 75% of the way through the burrito, and I almost inevitably stop here, however briefly, to reflect.  The remaining burrito is incredibly appealing – the tortilla is soft and still warm, the bits of chicken, surrounded by delicious layers of cheese and rice are offering themselves to me freely.  But I know that, deep down, I’m full.  I don’t need to eat the rest to feel satisfied.  I could just put it down, walk away, and avoid the food coma caused by eating an entire burrito in one sitting.  I deliberate.

As is, the remaining burrito could be conceivably re-wrapped in its foil and stowed in the refrigerator; later that night, I could open the burrito and have a delicious and rewarding little snack.  On the other hand, why not just eat the damn thing right now?  It’ll taste good, it’ll be over in a few bites, and I’ll be done with it.  But have just one more bite I cannot, for the remaining burrito, minus one good-sized bite, would be a paltry and disappointing snack to unwrap later tonight.  It would merely tease my taste buds with memories of the glorious full-bodied burrito, and leave me lusting for more.  And so I waver on the precipice, two choices very clear in my mind.

If I do manage to wrap up the burrito and walk away, I feel an incredible sense of self-satisfaction.  I feel that I’ve proved myself as a powerful and balanced individual – one who can look temptation in the eye and walk onwards.  If I do not, and decide to devour the final bites, I delight in my rebellion; I revel in my gluttony, and I eat with the strength of an ape – thoroughly enjoying the short-term gratification of indulgence.  Today, I wrapped it up.

Thanks to Natanya for this concept – a little rundown of things I love this Thursday.  A full stomach after another dynamite meal in the new apartment…. our kitchen that is always clean and spacious… our pantry that you can half-way step into and look around in… the massive tub of honey on the shelf in the pantry that made us laugh imaging dressing up as a bear for halloween and carrying it around as a prop… the peonies bursting out of the vase on our wiggly little dining room table… the fact that I can see all the way down the hall and out the front door from this seat… my colleagues at vFlyer who crack me up every day and laugh at my jokes and bring the sarcasm right back at me every time… my brand-new pair of slippers… my Moms… the rest of my family too, of course… stumbling across an old friend in an incredibly exciting way… living in the midst of the World HQ of acceptance and freedom of expression – the Castro… moving two people’s lives entirely in two full days… my new commute which is faster… my old commute that I really miss… my new roommate who is the ultimate roommie… my old roomies who are the best friends a man could ever ask for… my big ol’ bed where I’m about to head… a new favorite Hemingway book… a Los Angeles vacation around the corner… the internet… you!  seriously!!  you!!

Ordering Chinese food today was an absolute trip.  I called the House of Nan King, spoke with a lovely young woman who took my order very diligently, repeated it back to me, and said she’d enter it into the computer and call me back with the total.  I received a call back shortly thereafter, but there was a different house of Nan King employee on the phone – an older woman whose English was a few grades below that of my first caller.  

“Yeah hi Scott?” (I’d given Scott’s name, as he was headed to pick up the chinese food)
“Well, sure.. go ahead”
She started with a disclaimer –
“Yeah girl you just spoke with new, she doesn’t really know how to do it”
“Oh that’s ok”
“So what you want, how many people eating?” (I realized I’d be building my entire order from scratch again)
“There are 7 of us”
“Ok and what you want, beef? chicken? poark?”
“Well I thought we’d get a little bit of everything”
“Ok yeah so you want potsticker appetizer?”
“Yes, two orders please”
“Ok and you like sesame chicken?” (I had ordered sesame chicken – obviously she had my previous order right in front of her) 
“Yes Please”
“There seven of you?  I do two big orders – enough for seven”
One of us is allergic to sesame, so I really only wanted the one –
“You know I think just the one order of sesame chicken is enough”
“Ok and you want one more chicken?”
“Yes the chicken with chinese greens, please”
“Yeah ok chicken mixed veggie” ( a different menu item)
“You know I like the look of those chinese greens”
“Ok yeah baby boc choi greens, I can do that, you want *something unintelligable*”
“That’s fine”
“Ok what else?”
“An order of the sizzling scallops please”
“OK you want *some uninteligible scallop dish*”
“Well I see here ‘sizzling scallops’ – can we have that?”
“Yeah that only come with three pieces of scallop whole dish”
“Well what’s your most popular scallop dish?”
“Most popular? Well that probably be *some unintelligible scallop dish*”
“Ok well I’m just concerned about sesame – I see here one scallop dish has sesame” (menu item: ‘Crispy scallops w/sesame vege’)
“OK you want sesame? yeah I can do that for you”
“No! No, no sesame”

From the other end of the room, somebody laughs and chimes in with “No and den!”

“Oh no sesame.  Ok no problem.  What else, you want a brocoli beef?”

I just started laughing.  Really hard but silently and looking up to the ceiling as she repeated “You wanna brocoli beef?”
“Yes please,” I tried to compose myself “Yes please that sounds great”
She sort of chuckled on the other end, recounted my order, I asked for rice:
“Ok rice for seven people”
Knowing there’s almost always extra rice, I said “You know we don’t actually eat alot of rice, so probably rice for 5 people would be enough”
“Oh ok, rice for five”
“And an order of chicken chow mein”
“Ok chicken chow mein.  Ok thank you!”
“And can I pay by credit card over the phone?”
She had already hung up.

I sort of came down from the call, got up to share some details and have a laugh with the rest of the team, sat down at my desk again and my phone rang.

“Hello?”
*Noise of a restaurant*
“Hello?”
*More restaurant noise*
“Hello preez?”
I hung up.

“Unbelievable.  Now they’re calling me from their pants”  A minute later, the phone rang again.

“Hello?”
“Hi this is house of Nan King”
“Hi there”
“Yeah what time you want to pick up?”
“Well we’re eating at 12:30, so we’d like to pick it up at 12:15”
“OK 12:15 very good”
“And can I pay over the phone with a credit card?”
“Noooooo, no not over the phone”
“Ok, no problem”

I got up and walked over to Scott, gave him the credit card and said they’d be expecting him at 12:15.  Scott put the card in his wallet and I sat back down at my desk.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see my phone getting another call.

“Hello”
“Hi this is house of Nan King” (It was the new girl)
“Oh hello”
“I’m calling so you can pay with credit card for your order”
“Oh.  Ummm ok just a moment please”
I walked over to Scott, tapped him on the shoulder because he was on the phone, whispered that now we can pay over the phone, and he handed over the card.

I gave her the info, the order was processed, and Scott left a half hour later to pick up our $93.46 order of chinese food.

It turned out to be delicious, especially the potstickers, and we enjoyed our first eat-in lunch at the new office.  We had about 2 full boxes of rice leftover.

There’s a great old Cake song called Arco Arena with a chorus that goes like this: “From the streets of Sacramento to the freeways of LA.  There’s no single explanation there’s no central destination…”  This post won’t discuss the freeways of LA, but feel free to sing along as you read anyway.

I didn’t think this sort of thing would happen so soon. Sure, my blog is captivating, rich, entertaining, and inspirational, but I had no idea you were so galvanized by such simple prose.

This post is directed at the most active amongst you (you know who you are). I have a simple message: violence is not the answer!

In an earlier post, I put a particular ad campaign on blast for it’s egregious lack of grammatical integrity. Although I was certainly heated, dismayed, and upset, I by no means authorized or encouraged violent reaction.

Walking down Montgomery Street the other day, I was appalled to see that my words had been used to justify an act of violence (see photo)

I’d like to extend a heartfelt apology to this poor, defenseless poster – my heart and thoughts are with it and its entire family.

To the dear, misguided readers responsible, I ask that you pray for this poster and its speedy recovery.  I also ask that you take a look at your actions, and ask yourself if you really acted in the best interest of our cause.  Sure, this poster displayed a lack of compliance with well-defined tenets of grammatical integrity, but I remind you that ours is not the role of enforcer!  Violent action such as this does more to harm than help our cause.

It is only by exemplifying the statutes of grammar and cleverness that we so cherish that we shall prevail.  In the words of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

So, dear readers, please take these words to heart, and go forth with renewed commitment to properly placed apostrophes, appropriate metaphors, and habitual proof-reading.  Let’s lead by example.

I nearly lost my pannier (pan-yer) the other day. It was a scary moment -the realization, upon returning home, that my pretty yellow bag was not with me, and that it was lying all alone, exposed on the side of the road, with the pungent smell of leftover Thai food emanating from its unbuttoned maw.

I just got a hair cut from Supercuts (Actually, I got most of my hairs cut…), after about 5 consecutive cuts at the Cinta Aveda Fashion Institute. The verdict? Not a bad haircut (see photo). Supercuts is faster, cheaper, and they follow you on Twitter. Which is great but also a little bit strange. Who’s job is that? Collecting names from Supercuts sign-in sheets, then poring through Twitter for people to follow. Do they really expect me to follow them back? To get info on the most recent events at Supercuts? Like, cheap haircuts? Or…. cheap haircuts? Plz. I’d hate to be the social media czar for Supercuts. But I digress. I’d like to commend the Supercuts on Battery St. on their excellent, rapid service. In and out in 20 minutes, an entertaining conversation with my… stylist(?), and a standard $20 fee.

And now to bash the Cinta Aveda school. Or “institute” as they call themselves. I got turned on to this place by my sister Lucy, who had just moved to SF and was elated with the quality service and low cost offered by Cinta – a salon school where you get your hair cut by students for cheap. On my first visit I was impressed by the urban loft setting, the greeter taking my coat and offering coffee or tea, and the aromatherapy head massage. It all seemed very high-class, and I felt like something of a big shot. I was visiting SF and had no engagements or employment to speak of, so I hardly noticed that I was there for nearly 2 hours. The price was right too – $20 for a cut. In January I started work at vFlyer, and went for a cut on my lunch break. One should be able to fit a hair cut into a lunch break, right? Not so fast…

The following is a long-winded narration of my haircut experience at Cinta. Feel free to skip to the exciting conclusion.

Ride the elevator up to the second floor, meet your student, and sit down in front of the mirror. First, your student stylist listens to what you want, and develops their strategy. Then they must wait for the teacher. This could last anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. The teacher arrives, the student says “he wants an inch taken off everywhere…”, the teacher says “OK”, and it’s on to the shampoo. I really don’t understand why they need to wash your hair before they cut it, but there’s another 10 minutes spent getting a half cup of shampoo worked through your hair, followed by a half-cup of conditioner. Back to the chair where the cut finally begins. They start with the side of your head, and work their way around the back and up the other side. This is the “hard part”, and can take anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. By this time our conversation has pretty much died completely. We’ve discovered where we live, where we’re from, what I do, and if the stylist prefers cutting men’s hair or women’s. I’m struggling to stay awake, and thinking I’ve been here way too long. Finally they move to the top, and using the renowned “point cutting” technique (basically angling the scissors straight up so as to cut tiny bits of your hair at acute angles), the top of my head is worked down. This takes another 10-15 minutes. Then it’s time for the mid-term consultation. The student must go and solicit the attention of the teacher, both return and the instructor takes up position behind my head and asks how it’s going. I get a brief moment of experienced head-handling, maybe a comment on the thickness of my hair, and the reigns are returned to the student to brush up on a few things – usually the cowlick or the temples region. This is a 5 minute procedure, followed by a 10 minute closing clean-up. I’d like to share a specific anecdote here – near the end of my first Cinta experience, my stylist trimmed my sideburns. Naturally, she wanted to be sure they were nice and even. She trimmed one, then, to determine the proper length of the other, she actually DREW AN IMAGINARY LINE from one sideburn ACROSS THE FRONT OF MY FACE to the other, and made a trim. Looking into the mirror ahead, I could see a clear 1/4 inch discrepancy between the two burns, but I decided to let it slide… Believe it or not, this student was less than a month from graduating. After the clean-up comes the worst wait yet – before I can leave, an instructor needs to give a final review, and there is usually about 1 instructor per 15 students-giving-haircuts. This can take anywhere from 5-15 minutes. Sitting, waiting, watching. The instructor is usually deep in a customer interaction, giving a detailed lesson to one of her students while the haircutee nods along approvingly. She ignores her anxiously waiting students with practiced ease, as they cast apologetic glances back at me and inch closer, sign-off sheet at the ready. Once the instructor signs, I can sign, and me and my student stylist and I can take an awkward elevator ride together down to the ground floor. They pick out the product used in my hair, put it in a little pink wire basket, and pause during the goodbye to make just enough room for my cash tip. I usually tipped – more out of care for the student than satisfaction with my cut. I decline to purchase the product, pay the cashier, and I’m gone, booking it back to the office and wondering how I’ll explain my 2 hour absence.

In conclusion, the idea of the Cinta school is great – salon experience at bargain prices, but the experience of thy stylist is paramount. I don’t care that my supercutter doesn’t speak very good English, or that her glasses are horribly out of style, because she’s been cutting hair for 20 years, and she’s darn good at it. Maybe if I need an aromatherapy head massage and some grey taken out, I’ll return to Cinta, but until then (or until I get an awful haircut), I’m throwing my lot in with Supercuts. And yes, I now follow @Supercuts