Sara Ost

What defines the new chic? Grit and glimmer in conscious measure.

Over dinner recently, a colleague and I abandoned a hot and heavy discussion about the political zeitgeist for something decidedly more dessert-appropriate: women. The End of Men, the death of the the Death of Marriage myth, Lady Gaga, gay marriage, the endless debates about women getting funded in Silicon Valley – XX as cultural object is too hot to handle right now, but it’s less What Women Want and more What Women Are (and fools who confuse the two shall soon be parted from their money). If Superwoman is mercifully out, so is Single Girl. Women no longer fit into neat boxes, if they ever did: Wife. Mother. Career Woman. Bohemian. Twentysomething. Fortysomething. Old. Nope. Not your .xls, not your funnel, not your category. An extremely palpable swirl of chutzpah and quirk, charm and cojones, rock solid and rock star? Yep. And just in time. “It’s like there’s a new chic going on,” started my creme brulee compadre.

“She’s cool like confident.”

“She’s not afraid to say she wants a relationship.”

“But only if she wants one. Which she might not.” This, with a wink.

“She thinks ‘feminist’ is a pretty word.”

“Aw. Because it is.”

How to spot The New Chic? It’s motorcycle boots in your minivan. It’s courage, it’s eschewing Christmas if you feel like it, it’s not being afraid to be less liked and more respected, it’s borrowing the best traits from the boys and making us all more human in the process.

The New Chic means dropping the fear of fat. Bring on the butter. It’s good for your brain.

The New Chic likes girls, or boys, or both, and sometimes out of order, and don’t worry so much about it.

It’s breaking rules in accordance with her limits, which she knows intimately.

It’s leading the conversation in mixed company; something that can still stun a man. Try it, it’s fun!

Also? The New Chic doesn’t consider singledom a thorny brambles of broken GPS on the proper path to the soul’s completion, formerly known as a wedding day.

“This could go on all night!”

The New Chic often does.

The New Chic doesn’t go gaga over babies by default; in fact, she may not even notice them.

Did you hear? She brags and delivers.

She tells The Nagging Voice to fuck off so fast it scurries.

You’ll never catch her judging another woman with her eyes in group company.

She hasn’t done it all. She hasn’t seen it all. She isn’t everything and everyone.

She might have a hot pink stripe in her hair. Over 40? She still wears it long.

The New Chic is a forever fan of chivalry and that means: she extends it to others including and especially men.

Fact: a good thick moisturizer beats caking on the foundation any day.

The New Chic means walking out the door looking good; not made up, good.

She wouldn’t be caught dead in fast fashion.

She can drive a stick shift but prefers to bike in her heels instead. Because she wears heels. Sneakers. Are. For. Running.

She doesn’t prefer to text with the men she sees.

She is scrupulously honest because it just feels wonderful.

She is on time, every time.

She blurs the lines and doesn’t look back because she has nothing to hide on Facebook.

Two words: black coffee.

The New Chic does not drink Diet Coke. Does not diet (exception: the three hours before a date).

You can spot her because she stands up straight, sucks in her tummy tight, squares her shoulders and doesn’t pad the living daylights out of her nipples.

To err is human, to never brush your teeth in front of him, divine.

The New Chic is loving what you own to the greatest degree but letting it all go just as readily. Think of it as If the Buddha Consumed (and hey, he did). Example: A friend’s grandmother, who is something like a bonus grandma to me, has built a vast fortune in her life, and she has the personal drapery of diamonds to prove it. I’m talking the kind so big, they slide to the sides of her fingers whether she wants them to or not. Not bad for a girl from Oklahoma whose first crib was a drawer. “We never have insured these old things,” she drawled to me over brunch one cold Dallas day. “If a piece gets lost or stolen: eh, so what? I’ve enjoyed it.”

On that note: celebrates old people.

It’s being inspired by men rather than finding them merely useful. (We are all going to be better off for that one.)

It’s having the courage to build towards the best.

The New Chic has better things to do and hires people to help.

The most timely thing about The New Chic, though, is the sheer fun of it.

Your turn.

Originally on EcoSalon.

Image: Whatshername?

You say judgment, I say intuition, or, in the words of one of our editors: “It’s just marketing!”

Few things feel as gratifying as judgment. If, like me, you are saddened by the lack of respect judgment gets these days, is this post ever for you. Getting away with being judgmental anymore is really just a matter of finding the right things to be judgmental about.I’ve learned a lot about this lately, what with inadvertently enraging video gamers and cyclists and fans of the Apostle Paul and people who cannot stir. There are acceptable things you can judge these days, like the Housewives of Beverly Hills and augmented breasts and hair extensions, but maybe I’m being redundant. And then there are all the unacceptable things you can judge, or rather, the things you cannot judge, and the danger mainly lies in not knowing what these things are until the people who are great fans of these things let you know. Here you thought you were safe in judging canned cold spaghetti, but you’ve actually revealed yourself to be a pasta elitist with no appreciation for the common canned-spaghetti-eater’s reality.

Judgment may be all right for hosts on Bravo or Simon Cowell in spite of his awful haircut or the Supreme Court (but only during some administrations), but how dare you, mere fellow human, exercise any hint of intelligence and experience and wisdom and insight and taste and perspective. Everything is equal and wonderful and good and moral and beautiful, because someone else said so. Their judgment is not a judgment the way your judgment is a judgment. One word: Buddha. He really clears things up.

Anyway! Here is a list of acceptable things to judge no matter what, because the truth is that we all need to judge and with the current judgment against judgment, it’s getting harder to find things we can all judge together equally in correct fairness and unconditional acceptance and comprehensive agreement and inoffensive unanimity, safely.

Think of this as judgment with a condom on. We’ll start with judging the homes of others, because that’s where the heart is, and move on from there.

Fake Fruit.

We, the people, are going to judge your fake fruit. I am not talking about the handmade blown glass pear on the mantle. It’s not my style, but it might be yours. Besides, I have a glass bird on my mantle, so who am I to judge? Fake fruit in bowls that could serve actual fruit, on the other hand? You’re just leaving yourself wide open for judgment. How would you feel about someone’s kitchen island being anointed with bowls of fake cottage cheese? You’d think it was pretty dumb. That’s because it is. And so is your fake fruit.

Fake Christmas trees.

Fake Christmas trees. On second thought, possibly not okay to judge. Probably not best to take the niche approach to judgment of others’ holiday decor choices, at least in this case. As a child, I felt sorry for the families that had fake Christmas trees, until I learned it was because some people are allergic to trees but not to pliable byproducts of the crude industry. As an adult, I am not sure which is less green and therefore more offensive: chopping down trees for a holiday or making them out of plastic. You know what? The Christmas tree is actually the worst possible thing to attempt to judge that I could ever come up with. We’re not judging them, plastic or living, we’re just not. Let’s move along from this entirely before we’re accused of being in favor of the Christmas Tree Tax.

Fake flowers.

The 80s were filled with them because the 80s were filled with two things: bouquets of iris and crafting. If you lived through the 80s, you might remember that they were mostly about wreaths. Crafting, especially the crafting of wreaths, evolved to using real preserved flowers around 1989, but for a time, fake flowers were more abundant than the real thing, and it wasn’t until 1994 when everyone became allergic to dust en masse (this was pre-gluten) that fake flowers fell out of vogue. Sadly, they are still present in many healthcare waiting rooms, but we don’t judge the people who save our teeth or our lives because it’s a little rich asking them to be good decorators. Your neighbor, however? Free game.

Lawn flamingos.

Stick squarely to strongly disliking fake flora and fauna, and you can sleep the deep, safe sleep of completely irrelevant judgment. Absolutely okay to judge. The only person on earth who will take umbrage at your judgment is Jonathan Adler, and?

Anything sort of old but not too old.

Can you believe we all used to like [insert any activity, hobby, show, celebrity, fashion item, personal accessory, gadget, scientific inaccuracy, religious belief except you'll still want to leave the Ark thing alone, the witch drowning is completely okay grounds for judgment though, pain reliever, tennis shoe, brand slogan, movie, jewelry trend, haircut, one hit wonder, music subgenre, political sound bite, other things and stuff most people had and did but don't anymore between 9 and 14 years ago]? So ridiculous.

Now that’s what I call a list. It’s the kind of list they’ll make movies about. The kind of list children will study in textbooks. You might have been expecting a longer list, but the beauty of perfection is that it is simple.

Celebrations in the streets. Rain. Art. World Peace. Kumbayah. The Future. Go forth and judge.

Originally on EcoSalon.

Image: Keith Trice

Last week, I answered my cell phone while pulling up to a stop sign in my car. I will be the second or third to admit using your cell phone while driving is irresponsible; that’s why I don’t do it. I use a hands-free set. But I hadn’t even had the chance to reach for my set when two cyclists pulled in front of my car and began berating me. It took me a moment to realize this was what was happening, because one was taking a photograph of me with his camera. Flash-blinded, I slowly registered that the other cyclist was actually yelling with a level of smug approaching orgasmic: “What you are doing is ILLEGAL and DISTRACTING! You are BREAKING THE LAW! Do you understand how dangerous this is?” I appreciated the careful enunciation, but it was that last dollop of condescension I found the most delicious. It’s just one more reason to date a cyclist! So I can run him over.

It was true. I’d driven all of one block in a residential neighborhood – mine, and this is important – at the feckless speed of 20 miles per hour whilst on my phone. Even though I hung up the phone (more out of incredulity than guilt), the two cyclists continued behind me for two more blocks, deeply enjoying their special mission. Which is why I can report firsthand that being yelled at for nothing much in particular for two blocks is DISTRACTING. So distracting, I temporarily got disoriented in my own neighborhood and drove blindly for several minutes, pedestrians be damned.

Trolling happens all day online. It’s par for the virtual course. The internet is just full of uptight cyclists with cameras ready to reprimand naughty girls in shiny cars on cell phones. You never know what That Guy from High School will attempt on Facebook, or what angry email may come seething into your inbox ranting about some post of which the sender of said angry clearly missed the entire topic, not to mention point. A lot of times, they don’t even have the right site.

No big deal. But trolling in real life, by which I mean the one that doesn’t give you carpal tunnel? People, it’s time to get on down out of each others’ grills. I am concerned to find that trolling is finding its way even into the social habits of our noble cycling brethren. Perhaps they are an indicator species for the rest of humanity. The weak link, if you will.

I don’t think I’m the only one experiencing this. Our managing editor’s daughter was recently lectured by her school principal – this is elementary school – for having the nonconformist audacity to sport a single feather in her hair. It’s distracting! says the principal. No, it’s personality, and you don’t have to like it, but it’s none of your business.

The world is not out to offend us. Sadly, it is indifferent to us. And it turns out, other people are not just figments of our reality. They move and stuff. Unexpectedly, even!

Continuing in the automotive theme of trolling, because we couldn’t be more American right now: Last week I was at a dinner. I came out to find my car had quite literally been sandwiched bumper to bumper between two cars. Har, har. I marched into the corner cafe and asked around for the owners of both vehicles. No dice, just lattes. Forty minutes later, I was beginning to get annoyed. I called the police, and together we knocked on doors. At last, one hipster came darting out to move the geriatric green sedan backed up against my car’s nose. As he passed me, he preemptively put up his hands in such exaggerated fashion I thought he was crunking and was jealous because I don’t know how to. But no, he was just manning the defense. You’d think I had plans to eat his face. Now, maybe this kid has a habit of blocking other motorists and has developed this defensive mechanism to deflect violence to his person, but I’m going to venture he expected a big can of bitching out.

And then there’s the woman in the minivan who gave me the bird when I actually saved her from a fender-bender today. No good deed goes unflipped.

There have been enough of these incidents lately to give me pause before I go tweet and like some more. I started thinking about all the times I’ve snorted in derision at that one SUV that is the first on the hill to sign up for a crooked parking job. The times I’ve barely held my tongue, wanting to chide a child at the market for acting, unoriginally, childish. The moments where I have raised a fist, imagining what it might feel like to lift just the one finger. Pity it requires lifting a finger.

Maybe that woman on her cell phone needs to be on her cell phone. Maybe the guy who turned like an idiot isn’t such an idiot, just having an idiot moment. Maybe one day you need to be the idiot, and that’s okay. We actually don’t know why people are doing the stupid things they’re doing, and unless they’re putting us in harm’s way, we could care less so we should care less. People are limited, like furniture. Stupidity is as reliable as death and taxes, and more so in some places. Live and let live and live some more before perfection freaks us all out and we need plastic slipcovers.

By the way, the proper retort to all this is not, “But people really are that dumb and selfish. This is why I hate them.” The proper retort is: “I can’t believe you are knocking cycling, Sara. So not green. You obviously hate the planet.”

Let’s keep the trolling online where it belongs. This is practically what the internet was made for. Take that world, I have a blog!

tl;dr Be nice.

Originally on EcoSalon.

Image: cinnamon_girl

A piece on Bleacher Report’s launch of  video programming.

As I write these words, I’m sitting in a cafe in Pacific Palisades, Calif., a place that in a way is my forever home. My heart is full to breaking with gratitude for the women in my life. And I have to say that here, in the presence of our readers, because while I believe you must know if you’re here in the first place, I want to make certain you do: the women behind the words at EcoSalon are extraordinary. They’re the women you want to know, and should. Some days I can’t believe my luck that I do.

They are a glowing collage of oddball refinement, complexity and consciousness, beauty and such beautiful scars. Color, fire, humor, creativity, verve, style, yes; yet something else distinct runs throughout. That thing is love.

Recently, while in Los Angeles for the EMAs with two of our team, Johanna Bjork and Rowena Ritchie, we were able to meet up with another of our editors based in Los Angeles, Katherine Butler, along with beloved former senior editor Kim Derby. After a chatter-filled brunch, we stopped by Kim’s house to meet her puppy, Blue. Kim and Rowena discussed Byron Katie, marriage, love, and other topics as I sat listening. Back in the car, I told Rowena how blessed I feel to have such wise women in my life, not only as colleagues but as friends. “It’s quite a group you’ve got here, Sara,” she remarked. I practically ran away from her when she dropped me at the cafe moments later so I could burst into tears of happiness in solitude. Sometimes, the good in women is almost too much.

To the one who ordered me that book because I was too busy to get around to ordering it myself; to the one who saved me thousands in therapy in a single Zinfandel-fueled night; to the one I’m only beginning to know, lucky me, who is always up for an adventure, road trip detours included; to the one who got me through more than two years (you know who you are); to the beautiful soul who grows with me year after year; to the brave one who gave it all up to try something new; you amaze me.

When EcoSalon began, I didn’t yet have an idea of just what it would become. I was a driven, imaginative kid with a sponge where a brain usually is. What do I want to do with my life? Ha! It’s nice if you know, but for me? Not my M.O. Instead, I just go do the thing. So I just about wanted to marry Mike Rowe when I read his piece about passion and “following it” as an artist. He says to stop worrying about what “it” is and just show up. Just bring the passion; don’t wait to find the thing, bring your passion to the thing and it becomes your thing. It almost doesn’t matter what it is we’re doing – just that we do it. EcoSalon is a work in progress because we are each a work in progress – editors, readers, writers. We should never forget we are each changing every moment.

At dinner once with one of our investors, we were talking about the future of EcoSalon and what we might be capable of. “The answer’s in you,” he said, matter-of-fact.

But with all due respect, he was wrong.

The answer is in us.

Originally on EcoSalon.

The Blue Angels and the Blue Asses who love them.

I’ll say it: I hate the Blue Angels.

I don’t hate the pilots, especially since one in 10 dies in these shows. Their skill is impressive, but so is ibuprofen’s power to eliminate the headache I had all weekend.

What I hate is the hypocrisy and denial from otherwise educated, progressive folk, or what those outside of San Francisco like to call elitists. How can a typically, or at least stereotypically, intelligent and engaged population possibly think the annual Fleet Week celebrationculminating in a fuel-guzzling spectacle of mind-melting noise and nostalgic military might is cool?

Every year, the local media love to report on the inevitable controversy. There are those who adore the Blue Angels (the majority), the hippies who hate them (the minority) and the people who know they shouldn’t go in for such things but mumble about “civic pride” and “feat of engineering” before dashing down to the Embarcadero. Reliably, some outlet, usually a small weekly, will publish a complaint about this celebrated collective embarrassment – with politically-correct emphasis on the noise, never the navy! God no! – and the controversy flares up in the comment box.

This time around, when SF Weekly had the commie audacity to grumble about the deafening 150 decibel levels of the jets whizzing by their offices (“deafening” as the categorization for 150 happens to be an actual scientific fact), a keyboard-enabled denizen of San Francisco promptly attributed such grumbling to “carpetbagging transplants” who would dare deprive children of the fabulous experience of having class interrupted by the noise of the jets. No child of the Bay Area should grow up without that experience, he railed. I think it’s reasonable to venture someone still takes his PB&J without the crusts when no one’s looking.

This isn’t a video game. You can’t check into the Blue Angels on Foursquare. If you want to honor a great American marvel of technology, go bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. Fart all you like along the way, while you’re at it – you’ll put out far less toxic gas than the jets scorching overhead.

In short, I’m disappointed in my Berkeley-marching, Marin hot-tubbing, Haight-Ashbury pot-smoking brethren. (I’m also disappointed that sistren is not a word, but more on that another time.) Not because I out-smug them. Quite the contrary. I don’t attend rallies, I’ve never marched in protest, I wouldn’t wear Birkenstocks even if Birkenstock paid me in Manolos to do it, I eat meat and – wait for it – I don’t believe in sacrifice as a strategy. This hardly endears me to many a resident treehugger, but then I’m hardly enamored of an otherwise green population that mindlessly shows up once a year at the pier to cheer an outlandish and outdated display of sky-high dick swinging. Why must patriotism and pride always come wrapped around a weapon?

No one’s arguing that what the Blue Angels do isn’t enormously impressive. It is. The atom bomb was impressive. The many dams that have upended vital ecosystems are impressive. American feats of engineering, all. And you can argue for their necessity quite convincingly to many people and for many decades we have.

We are living in precarious times – thrilling times, to be sure. Our economy and our environment are in shabby shape, and that’s being generous. So for me, getting excited about a jet show is about as mature as getting excited about sandwich crusts. It’s just so entirely out of touch, and I have yet to hear a coherent defense.

I suppose this makes me a carpetbagging transplant and possibly a commie and definitely a curmudgeon, but in my opinion it’s time to put the Blue Angels on the shelf next to Formica, meatloaf TV dinners and Mommy’s Little Helper. We have much more fascinating “feats of engineering” going on, ones that might save us here and now, in the real world, in the true time and space we are all actually in and must face whether we want to or not. Escapism can be fun, but that doesn’t make it right.

Originally on EcoSalon.

Image: (matt)

I once dated a bright man who remarked that after years and years of girlfriends, he had simply come to accept the fact that every woman, no matter how sane and healthy she might appear to be, has at least one serious food “thing.” One girl might avoid carbs. Another won’t touch meat. Another has the issue with the legumes. So when I told him I don’t “do” grains, he was utterly unfazed. He’d long since been hazed by healthy. “I’m starting to think women can’t actually be anything like we expect them to be if they just ate like guys,” he said. Like I said: Bright.

I was reminded of this the other day when I was at a lunch in Sausalito with a writer. She excused herself to use the ladies, so I did what any normal person would do and promptly began listening in on the two women seated next to us. Who wants to be the obnoxious one texting on her iPhone at the table when you can be both retro and rude? Eavesdropping is such a lost art.

They were immersed in a very serious discussion. “So that’s when I realized I really had to give up dairy,” the Marin County Trophy Wife in all her resplendent Lululemon glory said. Blonde but not too blonde, boyish, twin tangelos tacked on her tanned ribcage. You know, tastefully anorexic.

“Of course!” The slightly-less-buffed-and-burnished friend. Oh, who am I kidding: the chubby one. She sallied forth into the good fight: “So do you eat tofu cheese instead?”

“Oh no! Oh absolutely not! I gave up tofu and all soy products this spring. The hormones, you know?”

“Oh, right.” The friend was beginning to understand what she was in for, wearing the resigned expression of having been in for this many times before.

“Yeah, but it’s amazing how wonderful you feel when you eliminate all the toxins from your diet. Obviously I don’t do sugar, flour, grain, alcohol, caffeine, ibuprofen, eggs, fish – the mercury, oh my god – and never meat.”

The usual suspects, I nodded approvingly.

“So you’re vegan but not eating grains? Isn’t that hard to find things to eat then?”

“Oh god, no! There is So. Much. Variety. It’s insane how much. Seriously, if people knew. It’s insane.”

“Like what?”

A pause long enough to put a cow down.

“Quinoa!” Tasteful Tangelo sparkled with triumph. “I eat so much quinoa. You know it’s not really a grain – it’s ancient and the Mayans or something ate it. And it’s a complete protein. I eat it all the time. I just never get tired of it!”

“Oh, okay. So, with veggies then. I wish I had your discipline.” This, in a tone of voice that was not in the slightest wishful.

“Well not all veggies. I don’t do the thyroid inhibitors. They’re really terrible for women, actually.”

“Oh?”

God how I wanted to ask her about nuts.

“Oh there are so many. Let’s see, Brussels sprouts, spinach, broccoli. Yeah, there are more but those are the main ones. I also avoid mushrooms – I mean they’re a fungus. I’ve read all about it.”

“So…fruit, then?” We actually are running out of foods now.

“Well, sometimes. You have to be extremely careful about fruit. I eat berries, they’re great. The antioxidants, you know? But not other fruit, I mean it’s basically just glorified sugar. And do not get me started on juice.”

“Okay.”

The friend stared at her orange juice and pushed her tuna salad around on her plate in despair.

“So…no fruit and no green vegetables, but quinoa.”

“Oh I eat kale! And chard! I love chard! I eat that constantly. Quinoa and kale. I tried it with butternut squash but you know how starchy squashes are, it’s terrible for your colon. I find that eating any squash or starch – or beans or peas, for that matter – impacts my colon so dramatically it completely destroys my colon’s ability to think. You know the colon is our second brain. My third eye was completely shut down when I was doing the butternut. And obviously carrots and yams are out of the question. The phyoestrogens. Avoid white and orange and you’ll add years to your life. It’s really that simple.”

“I’d never thought of it that way.”

“Oh, it is really true. But the biggest change was last month, and I can’t believe I didn’t tell you! Get this. I have been virtually been poisoning myself with nightshades, so I’m off them now. Completely off them. It’s been incredible.”

“You’re off what?”

“I’m off nightshades.”

“Like the nightshades they were scared of in the 1500s nightshades?”

“Exactly. You know, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, and a bunch of other plants in that family. Completely toxic. You’ve really got to read up on this. It’s just crazy what people don’t know about the food they’re eating. I mean I’m just amazed that people don’t care. The insanity of that just baffles me.”

The conversation continued on to the acceptable forms of green tea and the benefits of fermenting Chinese herbs and the continuing drama over little Emma’s rebellious insistence on eating apples with almond butter and why it’s critical to take both probiotics and enzymes but I soon lost interest. Clearly, until you’re off all the things, you’re nothing.

There’s veganism because you care. But there’s also veganism because it’s more socially acceptable than cigarettes and coffee.

There’s gluten intolerance, and then there’s just being a glutard.

Local, seasonal, organic, nontoxic, humane: file these under enlightened, empowered, excellent.

Having a “thing”? File that under being a girl in this world.

There’s diet in the name of health, and then there’s diet in the name of anything.

Originally on EcoSalon.

Image: miran

Fact: Every job I have had in my professional life I have found on Craigslist. I’ve sold a Volvo and bought a Jeep on Craigslist. I’ve rented apartments on Craigslist. I’ve furnished apartments many times over thanks to Craigslist. I’ve even sold furnished apartments for friends on Craigslist. I’ve found housekeepers, movers, interns, writers and staff on Craigslist. Tired of an electronic? Off it goes to Select Neighborhood/Bypass This Step. So over my latest fashion acquisition? Have I got a deal for you, sfbay.craigslist! Just about the only thing I haven’t done on Craigslist is date. Somehow the idea of finding true love in the same domain I can pick up Slightly Damaged goods lacks the romance I require.

I’ve moved house four times in four years, redecorating each time, meaning I’ve become exceedingly skilled in the art of “Why the hell did I buy this?” and “How fast can I get rid of it?” The most foolish purchase was a vintage lightbox I bought last year for no other reason than it seemed like a vintage lightbox would be a pretty cool thing to have. After it sat around looking stupid propped against my fireplace for a few weeks, I sold it for more than it cost me. Hey, I cleaned it.

But far more fascinating than mid-century modern knockoffs, remarkably excellent vehicles, the endless Ikea, and questionable camping accessories are the owners who come with such transactions. There are 10 kinds of people you’ll meet on Craigslist, and I’ve met them all. Why buy new when you can buy used and study the rich insanity of your fellow man, I mean, tread more gently upon our fine planet?

To my disappointment, San Francisco has presented far fewer specimens of forensic interest than Los Angeles did, which will reaffirm what San Franciscans already know about themselves while going unacknowledged by Angelenos, because, like. Still, I’ve managed to learn a lot in my years with Edit/Post/Delete. Herewith:

Nervous Guy

And I’m talking disconcertingly nervous. Coughing, trembling, flash-bout of halitosis nervous. He will definitely want to use the bathroom. Someone this new to the internet should really not be purchasing from it. Like, relax, Guy, you’re buying a pack of blank CDs still in the impenetrable wrapper. I promise they are completely clear of any and all data and have also been screened for Homeland Security bugs. Why am I selling? Maybe I think CDs are ugly. Maybe I feel like a chocolate croissant from Tully’s and was too lazy to get up and go to the ATM because my computer was in my lap.

Knock knock, it’s your New Best Friend!

She has lived, oh sweet Jesus how she has lived, and you are going to hear every last leftover morsel of it. Including the part about the boyfriend in prison. And the unemployment. But thank God for everything every day, because life is wonderful! Yes sirree, even with the poisoning because the landlord didn’t replace the carpet. You know there’s a law and they still won’t replace it. And the troubled son. And the pregnant daughter. And the contagious airborne infection but I won’t cough on you or anything, I’d have to lick your silverware! And could you maybe take $10 off the asking price, because there’s this scratch here? Ha, it looks like I did it with my keys, doesn’t it! Oh, heavens. Hey: Never stay with a man who hits you, honey. You trust your friend Tracy on that. I should charge for advice, let me tell you what. I picked the wrong line of work, honey, the wrong line of work. Hoo, boy did I ever. Do you have a boyfriend?

And did you ever pick the wrong email inquiry to respond to.

The Hi-Mai

Voicemail: “Hi, Sara, this is Trish. [Long sigh.] So, I just got home and looked at the cabinet again and while it’s really, really beautiful, and I totally get that it’s an antique, so it’s not going to be perfect, I noticed a small smudge and it’s probably something that would come off with cleaning but I don’t want to ruin the varnish and the ad said the cabinet was ‘impeccable.’ I’m sure you can agree with what I suggest. [Sound of keyboard clicking.] I think it’s fair for you to refund 50% of the purchase price because of the smudge which you didn’t note. I know the smudge is underneath the cabinet so people won’t see it, but I just think you should honor what you advertise because I was sold the cabinet under false pretenses. [Sound of man mumbling in background.] The smudge is located in the inner left underside corner and it’s basically like a sort of dust? And I’m sure it would be very costly to have it professionally cleaned because it’s at least as big as a dime, or maybe even a nickel. My Paypal is trish@highmaintenance.com, so I’ll just look for the refund today. If I don’t hear from you in the next thirty minutes I’ll bring the cabinet back for a full refund. Thanks for your help! By the way, I really do love it!”

You Think That’s Hi-Mai? Ha!

“Hey Sara, it’s me again. Trish. So, great news! The smudge came off when I touched it! Yay! I am so excited. So I’m just wondering if you could tell me what you think would look best: my Tiffany tulip vases or the Eames birds? Jeremy hates the vases but his mother gave them to us for our wedding, and I feel like it’s rude not to have them out somewhere, you know? And since it’s in the hallway, it’s not like a really prominent place. They used to be on the mantle in the great room and he didn’t even mind! Anyway. I just emailed you pictures of the cabinet with both the vases and the birds. Let me know which you think looks better. Oh, I took a lot of pictures, so you have to add me on Drop Box to get the file. I’m TrishHiMai on Dropbox. Don’t you love the cloud? K, talk soon!”

Visual Voicemail exists for a reason.

The One You Never Meet

As in the flake who never shows up, or bails ten minutes before meeting, or reschedules three times and still cancels. Sub-genre: The One You Never Meet Who Gets Mad at You About It. Very special.

The Negotiator

This isn’t the garden-variety negotiator who wants to skim a $20 break on your asking price. Anyone with any sense will try to low-ball. The Negotiator takes it to the cement. Example: I have literally had a man show up to buy an eighty-dollar item, shake on the purchase, look me in the eyes with a straight face, and say, “I just have a five dollar bill on me.” He went to get cash but never returned. I later discovered he had helped himself to my screwdriver.

The Negotiator is also exceptionally skilled in the bait-and-switch. You show up for a chair and next thing you know you’re arguing for nine minutes about why you don’t need a table. You’re literally reduced to justifying the table you already own, which you thought was a stable thing in your life in the sense that you’d never have to really defend it, that’s probably on some level why you bought it, but here you are standing up for your table like it’s the Constitution. Which is hard, because The Negotiator has a plan for how you can buy hers and sell yours and it will not only save you money and time, it will make your life vastly better because didn’t you say it’s pine? You know how pine doesn’t hold up. It wouldn’t be her choice, is all.

The One Who Has Read the News

Craigslist is dangerous. A craven den of perversion. An abyss of theft. A chasm of death. You get it. Craigslist is so dangerous, Sue (not her real name) insists on meeting in an extremely crowded and inconvenient public place like Union Square’s north corner or perhaps the Moscone Center at 4:30 p.m., Howard Street side. No bigs, you think, makes total sense. But Sue also has set up a Craigslist-only email, and refuses to give out her number, which makes the whole process of giving her money a little difficult, but you’re accommodating, because after all, the girl thing. Sue will only text you directions of the meet-up location thirty minutes before said meet-up via web-based SMS service, and if you make eye contact or touch her pepper-spray-clutching hand with the cash, let alone your own actual, living hand, she will call the cops on you. Or her boyfriend/lesbian friend with the bushy haircut. Who is hiding behind the tree. Watching you. With a camera.

The Guy Who Makes You Want to Duct Tape Your Soul Shut

Somewhere along the line, this bloke either contracted Asperger’s from one too many TV dinners or simply determined blinking was irrelevant to his interests. You show up and he just…stares. He will at some point inform you that he has Googled you; he really likes that poem you wrote when you were 19 as an undergrad, so, do you ever talk to your friend anymore? And did you ever find out about the Native American symbolism thing when you were 15 and Jesus Christ the indexing goes back that far? That’s if he hasn’t called you directly after you emailed him to tell him the item has already sold. You reprimand yourself for not removing your phone number from your email signature. You realize you’ve done this aloud. “Oh, that’s not how I found it,” he says.

The One With Absolutely No Clue Whatsoever

“Divine velour cushions on this deluxe oversized stuffed armchair, bought in 1984, just $400! Ottoman sold separately! Beautiful pastel pink, coral, gray, and teal floral pattern with swirls on a faded blue background with ivory dots. Only a few worn patches on the sides. We have loved sinking down into this designer piece from Levitz for decades.”

“Take a look at this AMAZING!! Shabby Chic style end table. Originally bought at Target six years ago!! Good and sturdy, I think it’s made of wood? I painted it white a while back, but I like how you can still sorta see the black through it!! Very vintage-y!!! Asking $60. NO LOWER OFFERS YOU GUYS.”

“Selling my black leather sofa because my GIRLfriend thinks it looks like a bachelor pad LOL. My loss is your gain. Buy the engagement ring while you are at it LOL.”

“Shelving priced to move I don’t have pics really nice style very cool and goes in any apartment really great kinda modern no calls you pick up.”

The Good One

The guy who takes your apartment in a flash who turns out to be really cool. The walking buddy who is a soul mate of the highest order, holding all your darkest secrets safely in her heart, year after year. You didn’t even want a walking buddy. You don’t just…walk. That’s not something you were in the market for, and yet, you did it and she showed up and that was that. The girl who buys your lamp who ends up writing for you. The one who rents out the place next door but really nurses you through a breakup, a move, and the meandering anxiety at all the strange and strangely good things of your life. The dude who knows everyone in the neighborhood and perennially has your back, or your bill.

Which perhaps makes me The Collector.

Originally on EcoSalon.

Image: blvesboy

Here’s a fun Q&A I did with Daniel Savage, the co-founder of a cool new iPhone app, GIF SHOP, for Fast Company.

This was really nice – I was honored by the Ashoka Changemaker foundation as a world ChangemakeHer.