July 2nd, 2009
Subject: This week an email with a question(s)
Dear Yasi,
I have been reading you for about a year now and I have been burning to ask you a question that has taken over my life. To be frank, I am
in love with my best friend. We have been just friends and seeing each
other every day for the past year. There are more than enough clues
that she wants to be more than friends, but circumstances that keep us
from sharing these feelings. We are two best friends afraid to tell
each other for fear of ruining the friendship. Is this all hopeless
and i need to drop it? or would it be foolish to but conventionality
before love? I have tried (successfully) to get over her in the past
and it works for a bit, then I’m drawn back in even deeper. I am 22
male in SF with no problem finding girls who like me. When the time
comes, I can’t even have sex with anyone EMBARRASSING. Truth is, I’m
100% in love and I know she has feelings too but I’m scared.. if our
friendship became awkward I would hate that more than anything, but if
we could just be true I would love that more than anything…. I can
never tell her………. damn I wish I wasn’t such a pussy.
You are very wise, kitten, so please tell me what you think about the
situation.
Peas,
Kellen
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Kitten,
If this were a rom com, your best friend would be blonde and bouncy and beautiful and you would be slightly dorky but intelligent and funny (perhaps accident prone, maybe a bit scrawny) and she would have an asshole boyfriend (jock, possibly Republican, definitely good jawline). You would be her shoulder to cry on, etc etc and one day (hopefully whilst it is raining and you are both outside) she would look up at you and realize (cue John Mayer/David Gray/The Fray) that she is, in fact, deeply in love with YOU. However, despite the collective longing of an entire population of middle aged women (and myself), life is not a romantic comedy.
The point of this diatribe (besides providing a useful segue into me listing my top 10 rom coms) is that you are not, in fact, guaranteed a happy ending. No one (not even Hugh Grant) is. But you should still tell her anyway. Why? Because cowards die many times before their death, and because the course of true love never did run smooth, and because something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Ok, maybe not that last bit. The Bard aside, you should tell her because even if you’re frightened and vulnerable and a little bit nauseous, it is better to be the one who is honest, the one who says the things he needs to say, the one who is not silent. No matter what happens, there is some measure of nobility, some bit of humanity in that.
xx,
Yasi
E-mail Yasi your question at AskYasi@thehundreds.com. There is absolutely no guarantee she will answer your question, but at least you can tell your friends you talked to a girl.
June 21st, 2009
Subject: This week an email with a question(s)
Dear Yasi,
I was reading your most recent posting and I decided to Google you. I was pleasantly surprised to see the first result was an article/blog/blurb/internet nugget of knowledge entitled “Women Making History: Yasi” from March 2008. You’re at least moderately famous/popular/lusted after/crushed on/successful and I had to know, a year later are you happy? Have you made much history in the past year?
And what’s your opinion on Twitter?
Ryan
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Ryan,
I’m fairly certain I’ve never actually made history, unless they have drastically relaxed the criteria for coverage in history books. My purported fame/popularity/crushworthiness is at best your speculation and at worst…well I don’t know what’s much worse than internet fame.
As for your other questions, phrasing it “a year later, are you happy” holds the implication that I was happy then. Not saying that I was or wasn’t, just pointing out the implicit. Proust said “Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible,” but then again it can be argued that he spent much of his life terribly unhappy and unhappy people tend to scoff at the validity of happiness. (Tangential, to be sure, but we could all use a little Proust now and again). To be honest, sometimes I feel a little bit like Franny Glass, who said something like “I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
I guess I should qualify that but I won’t, or can’t. Either/or.
About Twitter, a few weeks ago I had written it off as some vehicle created primarily to make me painfully aware of what kind of sandwiches all of my friends were eating for lunch each day, but since it has proven itself to be the voice of the current uprising in Iran, I’m sort of in awe of it. However, I got an add request from my dad yesterday so I still might have to cancel my account.
xx,
Yasi
E-mail Yasi your question at AskYasi@thehundreds.com. There is absolutely no guarantee she will answer your question, but at least you can tell your friends you talked to a girl.
June 17th, 2009
Subject: resurrected
when fisher hit that first 3 i thought about you and all that trash i talked about him. when he hit that second one… i thought you might have thought about me and all the trash i talked about him (if you even remember, that is). i am forced to take it all back. you win.
did i spell resurrected corectly?
jens
HI
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Jens,
First off, let me wish you a happy Laker Parade day. Secondly, you did spell resurrected right but you spelled correctly wrong (which is sort of ironic, no?).
xx,
Yasi
E-mail Yasi your question at AskYasi@thehundreds.com. There is absolutely no guarantee she will answer your question, but at least you can tell your friends you talked to a girl.
June 7th, 2009
This week in emails with no questions:
Subject: re: your remarkably repressed but your remarkably dressed
your dad isn’t tight..my pops told me the same thing a long time ago when i was a little niglet!.. “never assume cuz you make an ass out of u and me”
Thomas
I guess my dad isn’t “tight.” I consider this a good thing.
Subject: Tapatio
Dear Wise Yasi:
My goal of this e-mail is only that you read it.
I just ate at my local burrito shop for the first time (although delicious, burrito’s aren’t my first choice for food). Anyways, every table has a bottle of Taptio hot sauce on them. I immediately thought back to your post a few months or so back where you confessed your love for this delicious hot sauce. It is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!
That is all. Just wanted to let you know your opinions on delicious hot sauces don’t go unnoticed.
Thanks.
Tony
One time I was at Aviva’s house and she made me breakfast. When she turned around I had reached into my bag and pulled out a packet of Tapatio. She found this odd. (A short story by Yasi Salek).
Subject: Thank You.
Dear Yasi,
I was reading the “DC Rob” post and I just want to thank you for the Fontana shout out. (it wasn’t really a shout out I realize this) But me being a Fontana native I was surprised it was even mentioned so thanks again.
p.s. Trevor Ariza is the shit
Brett D.
Wait, Fontana’s a real place?
Subject: Gosh
dear yasi,
you’re a bitch. no need to be so mean. yes, this e-mail has bad grammar and is somewhat hypocrytical, but what the fuck can ya do.
steve x
In the words of the great Dorothy Parker (who was undoubtedly called a 1000 names far worse than that), “Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you.”
Subject: your website
If you’re interested in showing up as a first page result for more search terms on google and yahoo, reply back with all addresses you’re looking to promote and the best number to contact you with details.
Sincerely,
Victor Hugo
I prefer to be a last page result.
