Spring Has Sprung & Tempers Flare

 

Spring is slowly creeping over San Francisco. Flowers are in bloom, trees are turning green with envy and my fellow San Franciscans are still being tormented by last year’s holiday cookie. That’s right, it seems to me that most people around here are looking for a new-year weight loss plan or are seeking to just move forward with their lives. Putting weight loss aside, I feel like the tone of San Francisco has taken a turn for the worst. More and more vehicle related accidents are happening every day, disgruntled homeless screaming at all hours of the night, people stabbing others over miscommunication and of course (my personal favorite) pedestrian’s kicking cars. I’ve seen this 3 times over the past couple of days and it amazes me how angry people are. 

A simple and of course temporary solution to this ever growing problem: eat food, find some sun.

San Francisco has not been up to par with California’s stereotypical standards and I feel like that’s a big part of the angry community I find myself surrounded by. We all just need a little sunshine to get the endorphins running again, gets some much needed Vitamin D and that all over happy feeling of laying in the sun and relaxing for lunch.

EAT! I don’t care if you want to lose weight or not, people need to eat and they need to eat often. If we as humans, animals, insets.. etc. were not suppose to eat, then the world wouldn’t produce so many amazing things that nourish our bodies and bring us back to good health.  I cannot say that being a model has taught me any GOOD eating habits, but on the bright side it has taught me this: People need to snack OFTEN. It’s not an option. All of the “models” that I know have to eat every few hours or they become the meanest people to set foot on a runway. Don’t listen to what the t-shirt tells you, please people, “Feed the Models.”

For those of you thinking, “Duh Ashton, I eat a ton of food, which is exactly WHY I want to lose weight in the first place.” Well do not fret your little heads, just because you “eat a lot” doesn’t mean you are snacking or even eating the good things that your body needs. I will not even get into all the right things that your body HAS to have to survive. I will just tell you this simple tip: Put down your box of Pringles, say no to whipped cream on the white mocha and say yes to full glasses of water, trial mix, carrot sticks and fruit by the pound.

Don’t get me wrong. I am usually stuffing skittles into my mouth by the handfuls while franticly searching for the chocolate that I forgot to pack. I’m not saying you have to give up what you love. But after you finish that bag of skittles, you should probably drink a huge glass of water. It will totally change your mood.

At the end of the day I just hope that everyone can chase the sunshine and eat some food. Go be happy, stop yelling at each other, get lots of sleep and let’s try to be friends. After all San Francisco is not all that big, we need all of the help that we can get.  Enough said. – Ashton Miyako

Laundered Thoughts......

This evening I decided to take my ever so bold and daring first steps to the laundromat 2 blocks from my house. Normally I wouldn't fret over something so silly as washing my laundry, but tonight it was raining flood drops down my face, leaving me to look like a not so pretty and not to nice drenched kitten.

I made the trek out my door with my rolling suitcase filled with 4 weeks worth of dirty laundry, down 2 flights of stairs, up two blocks, over the river and through the gas station...to... grandmothers???.. laundromat I go.

This all started yesterday. So allow me to explain that yesterday I had no such luck. I walked down to see where the cleaning of the clothes happens, but realized I needed to get cash (Don't get me started on trying to find an ATM on this side of town) after finding an Automated Teller Machine I proceeded to ask the clerk who owned the machine if he could kindly "break" a twenty. What I received back was in broken English but I translated it to, "No, we do not give change here." I then asked where I might find a place to give me change and with an angry expression I was asked to leave and told to try next door at the Chinese Meat Market.

Upon walking out I found it slightly comical that I had just walked out of an Italian Pizza joint and was proceeding into a Chinese Meat Market right next door. I figured, "Hey, only in San Francisco do you get diversity like that."

Walking into that market was probably the worst thing I could have done. Two things came to mind that I will never forget. I am going to sum up those two things as, The Rules of The Chinese Meat Market:

1.) If you do not speak Chinese, you better look Chinese. If you are neither of the two, go somewhere else.

Unless..

2.) If you do not look Chinese and you do not speak Chinese, than you best be buying something. If not, go somewhere else.

I, however, had to learn this lesson the hard way. Being yelled at in Chinese while being fed the "shoo fly" hand motion told me that I did not speak nor look Chinese and I was not going to buy something. I needed to go somewhere else.

That somewhere else was Popeye's, diagonally across the street from the two places I now call "WTF!" and "Oh Hell NO!". I proceeded to try and enter this establishment but was "blocked" by many of the people outside. I had my iPod on so that I purposely could not hear them. After one step forward and still shut down I left the area only to be yelled at again in some language I could not understand over Elton John singing, "...b-b-b-Benny and the Jets" It amazes me the type of people living in this world. To be rude to a perfect stranger and not even care. Who is teaching these kids that it's ok to act like that? Certianly not my parents, that's for sure.

After temporary insanity set in, I found myself at home thinking, I can't believe I live in a place like this. Then decided to try again today.

Today as I was saying earlier was much more successful. I had change for my twenty; my laundry was packed and ready to go in the rolling suitcase and I was in the mood for singing in the rain.

Doing laundry wasn't as bad as I thought it would have been (getting there was half the battle) considering all of my whirlwind experiences from the night before. It only cost me $6.50 and an hour and a half of my time; which, in my mind, was totally worth it.

Somewhere between listening to FRIENDS and folding my teeny tiny underwear (Oh, and some creepy man on a cell phone staring at me and speaking to another person in a language I don't understand....yet again) I found myself asking this question:

What if the next time you started dating someone, you had to go through their laundry (clean, of course) to find out what type of person would they be and would you want to date them. If you're currently attached, would you still have chosen to be with that person if you had only met their clothing before ever seeing their face?

Realizing the possibilities one would have while surfing through piles of my underwear, thigh high socks, custom made dresses and too many scarves, I came up with more questions:

How do clothes define someone while they are not wearing them?

Would people come to the same conclusions?
What kind of judgments can you put on a person's clothing, without ever seeing them in it?

In my own daily life, would I still have chosen the boyfriend that I currently have?
Would I have looked through his clothing and decided to still be with him?

Can seeing the clothing of a person you've never met change your mind about meeting them?

So many questions.. so many answers.. I look forward to hearing yours. Please take the time and let me know your thoughts on the subject. I love hearing the thoughts of the people around me.

Yippie!!