July 24th, 2011
As a little girl growing up on the Jersey Shore, I harbored dreams not very different from any other small wistful child: to have a pony, to meet Prince Charming, to get the hell out of the Jerz. That’s not to say I wasn’t special – I just wasn’t stupid. There was a lot of living/learning/loving ahead of me. However, it was a recent incident at a party that challenged these lifelong fantasies. While snapping the heads off crawfish on a sweltering East Bay summer day, I listened as three married woman – all my own age – debated the actual time of their favorite part of the day: the exact time by which they have successfully changed into sweatpants.
Sweatpants.
Apparently, after years of attempting to get myself off the runaway Cat Lady Express, I’ve now come to learn what, in actuality, is the next station stop. And it’s sweatpants. Needless to say, this little girl needed to rethink the dreams within. Perhaps I could forgo the whole Prince Charming and happily ever after. Let’s be real – I can’t do cats but I sure as shit can’t do sweatpants.
Suddenly the things that seemed important weren’t so much. Sure, I still thought about relationships and the way we all collectively interact with one another in all its glory and weirdness, like 99% of the time – but the desire to write about my experiences, the “single in the city” voice, had dissipated with my hopes and dreams. Goddamn you, sweatpants!
While lunching at a sushi bar sometime after aforementioned dream shattery, the light bulb lit. The bar was airing a documentary on children in Kenya afflicted with cleft palate (obvious lunchtime entertainment with your tataki) and I felt everything come full circle (read: I cried like a little bitch). A nine year old girl told her story, through a disfigured mouth, full of questions left unanswered. Why would no one talk to her? Why did the other children fear her and point, laughing? Why couldn’t she go to school? Why had she been punished with a difference that alienated her from the one most important human experience: connecting with others. Experiencing love.
And there I sat, with my sushi lunch, Mercedes illegally parked, obsessing about some banal detail of my life, my relationships, and the experiences I’m so blessed to have but seem to be taking for granted. I had always believed in sharing the amazing that seems to inundate my life – but for the love of god, did anyone need another story of some lame guy or my continual pursuit of “not settling” in life? To not settle for anything less than amazing in life – I’m pretty sure growth needs to be part of that equation.
And so, rather than being oppressed by a fear of sweatpants, I became inspired by the hope of creating change. There’s so much good in my own world – it was time to expand outside of those borders.
However, starting such a lofty project – like being less of a piece of shit – takes some effort. You don’t just wake up Mother Theresa simply because you’ve thrown down the coin on another obnoxiously difficult to say domain name. Believe me, I hoped so too. I thought about my first year in San Francisco – and the subsequent amount of time spent meeting people, cultivating relationships, and documenting the weirdness that ensued. Surely I could shift that time to helping others, volunteering and sharing my experiences. Weekly do-goodery . I had, after all, gone on some “charitable” dates in my day. This seemed like a healthy place to start that whole “growth” thing.
To break myself in, I opted for a benefit celebrating the best the city has to offer while supporting Family House – an organization that covers the extended stays of the families of children getting treated at UCSF Hospital. I asked other people at the event their thoughts on the charity. Not many people even knew there was a benefit component to the party. I, myself, snuck into the VIP area and started to drink the premium wines and chatting up the crowd. Shafting a charity the extra cash for VIP? Not exactly aligned with my goals of being a better person.
Credit being slightly sauced and holding court on the dance floor with the emergence of the true spirit of selfless giving within me. In the form of THIS GUY.
Thrown across the floor in the most horrific display of animal cruelty I’ve ever witnessed, he lie helpess and moments from being trampled to death. I ran toward him, elbowing revelers out of the way with no abandon, and brought him to safety. And that’s when *it* happened. I fell IN LOVE. Homie the pony may have been been a rescue, but I would argue that he.saved.me (pause…collective cyberspace eyeroll.) 
And so San Franthropy was born. A year of weekly service – hopefully heavy on the weird – to learn, grow, share and give. After all, I had achieved my dreams of a little girl: I had a pony. Homie would teach me to love again. And I was in San Francisco. I was free of sweatpants and cats. Life was more amazing than ever and it’s time to spread the feeling.
Here’s to the adventures of sucking less. I may just be a little girl in this big bad world, but I’ve got a pony and a dream. 
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