The Best Day of Your Life

One of my main goals in teaching my English classes is simply to get students talking. If you’ve ever studied another language, you probably know that one of the most inhibiting factors of the learning process is experiencing the fear of making a mistake. And you will always make mistakes; as a result, many second language learners are afraid to even open their mouths.

In an attempt to slowly assuage this fear, I give my students a prompt at the beginning of each class—usually a question or something that starts like, “Tell me about a time when you…”—and we listen to each of them respond, English only (!).

The other day, my prompt was this: Tell me about the best day of your life.

This is clearly no casual thought to ponder, but, to my surprise, my students answered quickly and with much conviction.

Mohammad (a 60-year-old Iranian man) began by sharing that the best day of his life was the day the 10-year-long war between Iran and Iraq ended (he was still living in Iran at the time). He said there were parties in the streets, dancing, celebrating, tears of joy and relief—a weight lifted. Mohammad doesn’t drink, so he didn’t partake of the festivities in that sense. He simply relaxed quietly with his wife and let the idea of peace take hold.

Ruby spoke next. She said her best day was the day her brother gave her a balloon. She said that in her town in Mexico, children receive—in addition to little toys and trinkets—a balloon at Christmas time. She was saddened every year because her parents couldn’t afford toys, trinkets, or balloons. She always thought, ‘why not me?’ When her older brother was old enough to work outside the home (which probably means he was 12 or so), he bought her and her other siblings each a big balloon at Christmas. To hear her talk about it, to hear the absolute gratitude in her voice, you’d think he gave them each a vital organ.

Miguel’s best day was the day his parents contacted him—out of the blue—from Juarez, a border town near Texas. They didn’t live there, but they were passing through on their way to come visit him in the United States. He’d been living here for 16 years at the time and hadn’t seen them even once since. They called to tell him they were coming, and he heard from them once a day in the days that followed, as they drew nearer to Northern California: “We’re in Arizona now,” “We’re in Los Angeles,” “We’re on our way.” Miguel’s smile during the recounting of the story was priceless.

I found my students’ responses to be truly humbling. The best day of my life was probably my 25^th birthday, only because it happened to fall on the same day I realized a long-time goal of graduating from college. My family was in town for the commencement ceremony, and I was surrounded by lifelong friends as well as friends from my program. Yeah, that was a pretty damned good day.

But to me, it doesn't begin to compare. Many, many people have the goal of graduating from high school or college; millions of people do so every year.

Just imagine the kind of joy Mohammad must have felt to witness the end of a ten-year-long war. Just imagine! Ten years ago, I was just about to graduate from high school. The thought of all the years since having been spent in fear and anguish—with war as a thought to wake up and fall asleep to—is confounding.

The thought of a balloon gift bringing me the joy of a lifetime, the thought of not having seen my family for 16 years because I had to leave the country and slave away at minimum wage jobs (with the constant threat of deportation to worry about) to support them, these are things I am far from having the capacity to absorb. These are things that make me revere my students, who are now undertaking the difficult task of learning another language as adults.

I think they probably have no idea how much I admire their steadfastness and their courage. What really affects me is the fact that they never, ever complain. I see their lives as being full of struggles I’ve never been even close to experiencing and often wonder if I’d be able to handle. For them it’s just life, just the proverbial lemons that come with the territory, and they don't even think to stop and feel sorry for themselves because they’re too busy making lemonade. They are some of the most amazing people I'm fortunate enough to know.

Learning English, One Murder Trial at a Time

The members of my advanced English classes (Rosi in particular) come up with some great questions. Most of the time, they're asking for clarification on the meaning or pronunciation of words or phrases that caught their ears that week.

“What it means when somebody hand you something and say 'there you go'?” Alfonso once asked.

“Is it okay to say 'press the green key' instead of 'press the green button' on the ATM pin pad at the register? I have trouble to pronounce 'button,'” Rosi said one time.

This week, she pulled out her notebook and flipped open to a page where she'd copied down a few sentences.

“I was reading about the Scott Peterson trial in the newspaper,” she said. “You could tell me what this means?” She read aloud:

"I should have never taken advantage of how great you are."

This was apparently an excerpt from one of the recorded conversations between Peterson and his one-time mistress, Amber Frey.

“Ok,” I said. “Let's start with the phrase 'take advantage of.'”

After explaining that, I had to talk about 'how great you are.'

Then we turned to the verb form (present participle) 'have taken.'

This is tough material to cover, even when the students are excellent. We finally got stuck because of the 'never.'

“It means he never took advantage of her?” Rosi asked.

“No, it means he did, but he regrets it.”

Nunca debía tomado ventajas de lo maravillosa que eres (just in case you were wondering).

We all breathed a sigh of relief when that one was explained. Then on to Ms. Frey's statement regarding Peterson's suggestion that he “take care of her” in some kind of relationship context when all this murder trial hullabaloo was said and done.

"I'd have to be out of my mind," she'd responded.

“Okay,” I said, “let's start with 'out of my mind.' What does that mean?.”

They translated it directly: “It means fuera de mi mente. Like, not in my head, but outside my head.”

“Well, in this case, 'out of my mind' means loca. It's an English idiom.”

Tendría que ser loca. “Basically, she's saying she would only agree to get back together with him if she were crazy.”

These two phrases-believe it or not-took up about 30 minutes of our time. But I think that's the best kind of learning. I would be surprised if, after that much fuss, any of those students forgot those phrases or were confused by similar statements in the future.

Hey thanks, Scott.

The interaction reinforced my contention that a language is easier to learn if you focus on reading or listening to things in that language that truly interest you. I told my students, “If you really want to learn English, start watching T.V. and movies, and listening to (good) music in that English. Oh yeah, and get yourself an English-speaking honey.

Rosi is comfortable with this approach; she's dated a few American men. But I realized recently that this can present its own problems. It's difficult to judge certain aspects of potential match-ups outside of your own language-like trustworthiness and compatibility-at least at the outset. I mean, these things are difficult enough when oral communication issues are not a problem (inasmuch as two people speak the same language). And imagine trying to pantomime your way through an argument.

A few weeks ago, Rosi was excited about a coworker she'd just started dating. “I like him very much,” she said. “He so nice, he tell me he love me. We go out for coffee after work the other day.” I was a little cautious on her behalf when she said he'd told her he loved her. She'd never even mentioned the guy until that week, they'd been on two dates, and already he loved her?

Then she told me about how, on the first date, he was showing her his martial arts moves. She started imitating what looked like Tai Chi in a very dramatic and serious way. I laughed a little when she told me, only because when she said it, she made a face that said she thought the display was funny, she didn't know what it was all about, but, you know, whatever.

The next week, she brought her new friend in to meet me, and immediately, he struck me as strange. Now, I love strange-a certain kind of strange (you know, quirky, goofy, weird sense of humor, uncouth, random…that sort of thing). But he was a different kind of strange, an anti-social kind of strange, the kind of strange that puts other people on-edge.

'This can't work,' I thought. 'Rosi is spunky, fun, outgoing. This man doesn't look like fun at all.'

The other thing was that I felt bad having a conversation with a native English speaker in her presence. It felt like I was betraying her, like simply by virtue of the fact that we were raised in the same culture, he and I were sharing a secret she wasn't privy to. I was a co-conspirator.

The next week she came in telling me that he was supposed to come over to her house that morning and go out to breakfast with her, but he never showed up. No call, no note, nothing at all. The next time he saw her, he explained that he was scared. That he “loved her very much,” but he was scared, so he decided not to go to breakfast with her.

“I don't know, Rosi,” I said, “this guy sounds like bad news.”

Then I explained what “bad news” means.

That same week, Rosi's guy told her he couldn't date her because he loved her too much. And after that, she was-understandably-a little chilly toward him at work.

“I'm a person!” he cried to her at the registers. “I'm here, Rosi. I'm a person, and you can't ignore me! I'm a person!”

She was confused by this guy. I told her to stay away from him. I wondered, though, if she would have picked up on his undesirable qualities had he been a native Mexican, and I'm pretty sure she would have. It's hard to notice these things when you're focusing so hard on simply understanding the meaning of a person's words. You don't have the chance to note HOW they're saying them, what they're not saying verbally but communicating otherwise, and when they are flat out lying.

Rosi remains single.



And then, sometimes, it works. Two weeks after English-by-murder trial, and one week after Rosi's “I'm a person!” ordeal, this happened:

Alfonso came to class looking a little nervous. He explained to me that he had a lot on his mind.

“You know my wife?,” he asked.

I do. His wife is an American woman who works with him there at Whole Foods. They have twins together-a boy and a girl, whom I've met and who are stinkin' cuties!

“Yeah,” I said, “I know your wife. What about her?”

“Well, she no my wife.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we no married yet. I just call her my wife because it make it easier, but we no get married yet. Today I go to talk to her Dad. I going to ask him for if I can marry his daughter. I very nervous. I scared he think my English is not good enough for marry his daughter.”

I thought I just happened into one of the most wonderful conversations I'd ever had. “Why don't we practice?” I said. “What kinds of things do you want to say?”

“I want to say I love her very much. I want to say she give me two wonderful children. I say I want to spend my life with her. That I want him and he wife to be my family, my father- and mother-in-law.”

Let me just state this disclaimer first: I have no romantic notions of marriage. Or maybe I mean I don't have any romanticized notions of marriage. I don't think marriage is automatically beautiful or good. In the abstract, I'm actually somewhat opposed to the idea of getting married.

But that's the abstract. Alfonso and his (soon-to-be) wife Nicole are the concrete. And the concrete example in front of me was beautiful, and it was good. I told Alfonso I thought what he said was perfect. We talked some more about how he would say it; he was going to have the conversation later that week.

It was the most worthwhile English lesson I'd ever given.

I suppose if you get the right two people together, things like spoken language become a secondary means of communication. The fact that something like the Peterson/Frey conversation even happened prove that speaking the same language as a honey does not automatically guarantee an easier, more seamless experience. That is, of course, putting it mildly.

Alfonso will probably, by sheer sincerity of intention, convince his would-be father-in-law of his worthy candidate status (I'm sure the talk is just a formality anyway. And besides, it's Nicole's decision to make, and she's already made it).

Rosi might meet an English-speaking man with whom she can communicate absolutely. Or she might not.

I'm just glad to be there to answer questions and watch them learn along the way.

Not Urkel, but Close

As a birthday present one year, my brother Kris gave my cousin Erin a 5’7” glossy photo he’d picked up in a janky Hollywood souvenir shop. The photo was a promotional shot of Jaleel White, all decked out in his Urkel costume and giving two thumbs up. Kris had signed a fake autograph that read To Erin, Happy Birthday to my number one fan. Love, Urkel. P.S. Did I do that?

Ugh. Just picturing Urkel saying that in his annoying voice (made twelve times worse once he hit puberty) makes me cringe. But despite, Urkel holds a special place in my family; making references to his horrible character never seems to get old.

So a few weeks ago, after Bill Clinton was in our store, I left a message on Kris’ voice mail that said, “you have three chances to guess whom I met yesterday, and I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t Urkel.” I knew Urkel would probably be his first guess.

Last week, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented itself. I was walking through Barnes & Noble when a coworker mentioned in passing that his day had been made better by his having just met _______ .

“________ is in our store?!,” I squealed. I couldn’t believe it. My first thought was: ‘must get an autograph for Kris. Must get an autograph for Kris.’ I searched the place frantically, hoping ________ hadn’t already paid and left.

In hindsight, I’m kind of glad I didn’t find __________ right away. I realized—in the course of my search—that I would only be getting the autograph so Kris and I could laugh about it later, not because I was truly an admirer. And that’s just not really the nicest thing to do. So I settled for exchanging a few words when _________ came to the information desk seeking some help, and resolved to tell my brother about it later.

The message I left on Kris’ voice mail that night went: “you have three chances to guess whom I met yesterday, and I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t Urkel…but close.”

He called back later and set to guessing.

“Not Urkel, but close? Hmm,” he said. “Kimmy Gibbler from Full House?”

We hate Kimmy Gibler, and it was a good guess.

“No,” I said, “but you’re on the right track.”

“Um, Paul from The Wonder Years?”

“No.”

“Was it Monroe from Too Close for Comfort? Boner from Growing Pains?

“No dice, Bro.”

Then he came out with one I’d totally forgotten:

“Skip from Family Ties?” he said.

“You’re good at this,” I said, “but still wrong.”

“I know, I know. It was Cockroach from The Cosby Show.”

“Damn!” I said. “Cockroach from The Cosby Show?! What dusty corner of your brain did that one emerge from?”

In a hundred guesses, I would have never remembered Cockroach from The Cosby Show. But the heaviest of artillery was yet to come.

“Was is the quadriplegic girl from The Facts of Life?”

That was just too funny. I tried to imagine that exchange:

“Pardon the intrusion…I’m sure you get this all the time, but…aren’t you the quadriplegic girl from The Facts of Life?”

And what are the possible responses to that imaginary question?…“Yes, yes I was. Only now I’m a quadriplegic woman.” Or, “No, I’m just a regular quadriplegic person, not a famous one.”

So anyway, that guess was wrong, too. How could he have overlooked what was—in my view—the quintessential T.V. dork friend who somehow still got to hang out with the non-dork characters we’d really tuned in to see (why we’d even tuned in to see those non-dork characters I’m not sure)?

I was about to disown Kris when it the answer came upon him in a flash of T.V. trivia brilliance.

“No way,” he said. “Wait a minute. No way. Did you see Screech?!”

“Dustin Diamond himself,” I said.

“Oh man, that’s awesome. Did you get his autograph?”

“No, I said, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

He understood.

But not only did I not get his autograph, when he came to the information desk, I wasn’t even able to address his Screechness. At the time, I was reminded of a story Kris had once told me about being seated next to Long Duck Dong from “Sixteen Candles” for brunch at a restaurant in Hollywood. I’d asked Kris at the time whether or not he’d said anything to The Donger. “You mean about the fact that he’s Long Duck Dong?” he asked.

"Well, yeah, I guess."

"No," he said. "I mean, I'm sure he knows he was Long Duck Dong." That made sense.

I realized at the time how stupid any comment to The Donger would have sounded. And “Hey! You’re Screech!” certainly doesn’t sound much better than, “Hey! You're Long Duck Dong!”

I let Mr. Diamond—Screech-disguising full-face beard and all—continue to pretend he
didn’t once star as the most obnoxious T.V. character of all time.

We all make mistakes.


He’d been browsing the chess books when I saw him. Later that day, when word got around that Dustin Diamond had been in the store buying chess books, my coworker Wolfgang, who plays tournament chess, asked, “Wait, you mean to tell me that guy was on a T.V. show?”

“Yeah, he was on Saved by the Bell, of course.”

“Well, I never saw that show [liar],” he said. “All I know is that I met that guy at a chess tournament once, and he told me his name was Dusty.”

So apparently Dustin has managed to reincarnate himself as "Dusty," the tournament chess player with facial hair. I congratulate him and hope he’s overcome the horrors of recovering from teenaged T.V. infamy.

But you know, thinking about it now, I don't know if I would have been able to resist saying "Oh sexy giiiiirlfriend..." had I been the one seated next to The Donger at a restaurant.

It's just a good thing Screech never had any quotable lines.

Uhn uh!; What is and Ain't Right at the Annual San Jose Jazz Festival

Sorry for the absence...this post should have been done weeks ago, but I have no internet connection at my house right now and have had some trouble arranging things. I hope to have it cleared up soon as I'm a little loathe to write when I don't know if I'll be able to post it.


I knew it was coming well in advance. I'd consulted the website some 4 months ago, carefully checking and double-checking the dates before I marked them down in bright colors on my calendar:

15th Annual San Jose Jazz Festival: August 6-8, 2004.

!

If you know me, you know the Jazz Festival is one of my favorite things in the whole world. I've planned work schedules and vacations around it, I talk about it for weeks leading up to its happening, and I get just a little sad when the last few bars of jazz are played and the final rounds of musicians begin rolling up their cords and cleaning the spittle out of their trumpets.

In some ways--coming in the midst of the long, hot, California summer and bringing with it all manner of cool--the Jazz Festival is the highlight of my year.

This year, because I work 7 days/week between the two jobs, I had to do some manipulating to ensure my spot on the lawn, on the Salsa dance floor, and under the sexy, red lighting at Pete Escovedo's new Latin Jazz Club downtown. I worked double shifts to get the weekend off and made it clear to my boss there was no way in hell I'd be anywhere near the building (Barnes & Noble) for the duration of the music.

So, Saturday morning I awoke with no obligations save the one I'd created for myself: Get thy booty downtown.

I grabbed water and a blanket and set out to stake my claim on an oh-so-precious patch of grass at Cesar Chavez Park. I thought 10:00am would be early enough; the first musicians didn't come on until noon.

It was early enough, but just barely. My blanket landed on what was nearly the last remaining square of ground in the shade, with a comfortable bit of buffer zone between me and the nearest fellow aficionados. Things were looking good. All I had to do was grab some coffee and a newspaper, chill for a couple of hours, and wait for Nicole to arrive (kiddies in-tow) and make and honest space-claimer out of me.

While I waited, I chatted with the man to my left, a robust, 7-foot tall, African-American man who was saving space for his family members, still back at their hotel. I lent him the sports page (once I'd checked to ensure the Dodgers won the night before), and we were officially friends. This came in handy when, 10 minutes before the start of the music, three chubby woman parked their high-backed chairs in the 18-inches of space that separated me and the blanket in front of mine.

What the?

But I wasn't about to say anything to them. I'm pretty mousy when it comes to stuff like that. Lucky for me, neighbor man spoke up.

"Uhn uh!," he said. "Now, that ain't right."

"What?," one of the women asked.

"Now see, that's why people get here early. And now you come up in here settin' your chairs, blockin' everyone's view. Uhn uh! That ain't right."

The women scooted a little to the right, so they were no longer blocking his view in the slightest, but were now parked in front of me and the couple to my right.

"Oh no you don't!" said the man to my right. "Uhn uh! We been here for two hours, and you ain't even tryin' to come in here now with your high-backed chairs, blockin' our view."

So the women scooted a little more to the left, now no longer blocking either of their views, just mine. My new friend wouldn't have any of it. He stood menacingly over their shoulders, hands on his hips, making occasional comments like, "that's why folks get here early," and "now see, that just ain't right."

I was exchanging glances with the man and waiting for them to get enough of the scrutiny and the daggers being sent their way from both sides, as well as from the couple seated behind me. A few minutes later they got up and waddled off, never to be seen again. I relaxed and read the rest of the paper until Nicole came.

When she got there, we lounged a while on the blanket, taking in the music, eating Indian food from Shalimar's food booth, and watching her daughter and step(ish) daughter do whatever it is kids do when they can't run around and have no toys to speak of. Mostly, they just talk. When the girls got squirrelly, she took them to the fountains to splash around a bit, and when they returned, she announced it was time to go before the ticking, 2-year-old time bomb went off. "This one's ready for a nap," she said, in that unmistakable Mom voice (when did my best friend become a bona fide Mother? It continues to give me pause).

But before little Maya left, she helped me prepare for the real fun. "Maya, are you helping put on Auntie Kisa's sun block?" I said this when I felt the slight pressure of her single munchkin forefinger spreading a nearly undetectable line of lotion around on my shoulders. Maya knew. Oh, she knew: Auntie Kisa was headed for the Salsa stage (the dance area of which is located in the bright, August sunshine).

Nicole was kind enough to add my blanket to the stash of family emergency preparedness objects she had packed in every corner of Maya's stroller, and I was now free to roam.

At the Salsa stage I danced. And sweated. And danced. And sweated.

Then to the Big Band stage to cool down a bit. That was nice, but a bit mellow for my mood. I returned to the Salsa stage and danced some more.

Then it was off to the Latin jazz stage, then a walk to Pete Escovedo's club to catch a quartet fronted by a saxophonist named Hafez Modirzidah (say the name aloud; it sounds so cool: [Hah-FEZ Moe-DEER-zih-duh]

I'd gone to that particular show because I'd heard the musician on the jazz station before, but also because it was indoors, in a real club, a.k.a. in the shade. But when I got there, I sort of wished I'd spent the whole day there, because that's where the real fans were.

The bummer about the main stage outdoors is that--although it's the venue for the festival's biggest names--it's host to the least common denominator of festival goers. While most of them probably like jazz (or at the very least, they don't hate it), they aren't necessarily fans. They don't give props after solos, and often they don't even seem to be listening. This is the area where families gather, people eat and drink, and scantily clad folks go to be seen.

The club was for heavy hitters, only. And my god, that was a good show. I've never seen a tighter group of jazz musicians, all four incredibly talented but humble enough to give each other space to shine. And the audience, a mostly middle-aged group of head-moving, foot-tapping cats, was the kind I'm sure every jazz musician craves: they knew how to dig it.

I was riding a wave of joy until I reached to pay for the drink I'd ordered and saw my little purse all aglow in blue from the face of my newly acquired cell phone. Somebody was calling, somebody being my boss.

'No way,' I thought. 'There's no way.' It was four o'clock (the time he was supposed to work that day), and I imagined he was stuck at his house an hour and a half away from our work, calling to ask me to go in and cover for him. There was just no way--not after all my planning.

I pretended I didn't see it.

And moments later, he was calling again.

Then moments later...again!

Damnit!

Finally, on the third call, a little icon told me he'd left a message. I resisted my sometimes hyper-active sense of responsibility long enough to enjoy the rest of the show, but admittedly checked my messages first thing after stepping outside of the club.

"This is your moron boss, who forgot to post next week's schedule, just calling to let you know you're closing on Monday."

Phew.

With the phantom weight off my shoulders, I was loving the day more and more.

On my way back past the main stage, I ran into a regular customer from Barnes & Noble. "Hey," he said, "were you here last year?"

"I'm here every year," I said.

"Oh, because I think I saw a picture of you in the paper at last year's Salsa stage."

This particular customer is just a bit goofy, so I dismissed him. How could he remember from last year? "No, that wasn't me," I answered.

Twenty minutes later, I was back at the Latin stage, where I ran into one of Kelsi's band members, Andy.

"Hey girl," he said, "you know you were in the paper Friday?"

"Somebody just said I was in the paper, except he said last year."

"No," Andy said, "it was a picture from last year's festival. They put it on the back of the page with the schedule for this year's festival."

"Ah ha ha ha ha. That's funny," I said, and asked him what the picture was of. He told me I was dancing and looking very happy. "Kay," I said, "I'm gonna have to check this out."

I called Daniel, who handles the magazines and newspapers at work, and asked him to put a copy aside.

Then I found Kelsi, went home and took a shower, and met her and her friend back at Pete's club to watch an all-star jam session. And that was awesome! Picture thirty or so super talented musicians in a room, just switching out when they felt like it and making it up as they went along. Some of their egos were a bit much, and not every random combination was a winning one, but it was mostly awe-inspiring and full of adrenaline like everything is when one doesn't know what will happen next. I felt like I could have stayed there all night. Like if my whole life were just one long jam session, I'd be the happiest woman in the world.

Aren't our lives just one long jam session?

Anyway, when that was over we headed home and I went to sleep, fixing to do it again the next day.

But I had blisters by the next day and was a bit tired, so I did less dancing and more listening and (always fun when large groups are gathered) lots of people-watching. That's a nice thing about going places alone: you're free to be quiet and simply observe. Plus, you take up less space and can therefore be less conspicuous, which is perfect for a voyeur like me.

I watched them walk by and constructed their stories in my mind. Oh yeah, he's got a wandering eye, for sure. Is that her dad or her boyfriend? An outfit made from Rolling Stones album cover art? That one's daring. What's his story? Is that their kid? He doesn't look like either of them. Maybe he's adopted. Mmm, that cookie looks good...I wonder where she got that. Cute couple. I bet they were high school honies. What's this guy up to? Looks shady to me.

I love it. People-watching is one of my favorite things to do.

After a while of that, I went to catch some more Salsa. There was a band on stage comprised entirely of boys who looked to be between the ages of 10 and 17. Hmmm. But these kids were good. I mean REAL good. I was blown away. After watching and listening for a little while, I started to get emotional. I was thinking how beautiful it was that these kids represented the future of jazz, and they seemed ready to accept the task before them, which impressed me. Salsa is incredibly complex, and I was amazed that such young kids would take an interest.

And there was something working on a cultural level, too. It wasn't only that these kids would one day take the jazz musician reins, they were helping to keep alive a part of my (as a fellow hispanic person) culture. Dare I say "my people"? When they brought an eight-year-old girl to the stage amidst all these older boys--and she played the flute with prodigy-like skill to the jaw-dropped amazement of everyone--I lost it a bit. Have you ever danced and cried at the same time? It was really one of the most beautiful moments I've experienced in my life. I've never been more proud of a stranger and scarcely never been happier to be exactly where I was at a given moment in time.

Except maybe at the festival the year before. For proof, consult the Mercury News photo below :)

Yeah, the Jazz Festival makes me feel THAT happy. What's that say on my blouse? That's right...Dodgers!

Smells Like Piddle

I’d read about these situations before. A few weeks ago, I had the fun job of going through the managers’ log and reviewing entries from the past 8 months or so; during that time, the managers saw fit to write about things like employee absences, tardies, equipment malfunctions, and incidents involving thieves, masturbators, and other characters who attracted the attention of the authorities.

Relative to some of the tales I’ve read, my management stint has been a breeze, and last night started as no exception to the rule. We had plenty of employees working, and they were in good spirits, to boot. Sales were strong, the place was clean, and the displays were looking good for today’s purported visit from our regional manager (which never happened—that is so damned frustrating!).

In many ways, it was business as usual.

At about 9:00 p.m., one of our regular customers approached me with some sort of strategic plan worked out in his mind, which he began to outline for me, in media res, in his strong, Indian accent. “You know,” he said, “he’s not doing anything wrong, so I’m sure you can’t legally ask him to leave, but there is one route you could pursue.”

“Who?” I asked. “He who?”

“The man. He’s sitting in the chair next to mine. He isn’t bothering anybody, but he is taking cigarette butts and putting them in the magazines,” he said. “You could get him on that.”

“Well, what man? Where are you sitting?”

“Over here, in the children’s section,” he said.

If you’ve read any of my previous posts—namely the one about the customers who are not only not right, but very, very wrong—you’ll remember that any hint of trouble coming from a man in the children’s department usually means bad news a-brewin’.

The customer (K.C.) began to lead me to the area, then stopped just out of earshot of the man in question. “Oh yes, the thing is,” he added, leaning in to whisper to me: “he smells like piddle.”

The word seemed to denote a scent that would be far cuter than it could ever be offensive, but when I approached the subject of our discussions, I realized “piddle” was probably not exactly an accurate choice.

“He smells like dirty ash pit” might have been a bit closer to the truth. And it’s important, I think, to differentiate between objectionable odors. “Piddle” would have been unbearable. “Dirty ash pit” was not SO bad.

K.C. didn’t seem all that put-off, either. He remained seated next to cigarette butt man for the remainder of the night. I suppose he just wanted to warn me in case some of the other customers might be driven away; our regulars like to think of themselves as little helpers…some of them regularly report strange goings-in and even see fit to give talkings-to to pervy ne’er-do-wells.

I thanked K.C. for his tip and approached the man, who was clearly transient. I’m not one to kick people out simply because they’re dirty, or even because they smell (aside from the fact that there aren’t really legal grounds for this, my inner hippy says, “Well, as long as they’re not hurting or truly disturbing anybody—you know, to each his own.”)

“Excuse me, sir,” I began. “Have you purchased that magazine?”

He didn’t respond verbally. He just made a no-ish kind of noise.

“Ok, well then would you mind not putting your cigarette butts all over the cover?…you’re going to ruin it.”

Now, people ruin our magazines all the time; that wasn’t really my concern. The gross thing is that we’re talking a heaping pile of hodgepodge butts collected (I imagine) from ashtrays and trashcans and parking lots the city over. They were all different lengths and brands and—like any cigarette butts do—they just STUNK.

He gave half a nod, scooped them up, and put them back in the old Camel Lights box sitting next to him on the armchair.

“Thank you,” I said, and walked away.

It wasn’t until a couple of hours later, when we were fixing to close, that smokey man and I were reacquainted. It seemed he had passed out on the chair and completely missed both our closing announcements.

K.C. the Regular, stood by and watched while I said, then said louder, then yelled, “Excuse me sir? Sir? SIR?”

He opened his eyes.

“You’re going to have to leave now. We’re closed.”

The man managed a little nod, then dozed off.

“No,” I said. “I mean now. We’re closed now.”

He nodded again, this time with eyes closed, then let his head fall to the cushion.

Hmm. What to do?

I summoned Darrell, our big, Clark Kenty head cashier/bouncer (you think we don’t need one, think again).

Darrell yelled using his outside voice, and this time, the man didn’t bat an eyelash. Darrell (a former cop) said, “call the police.”

I really hated to do that. But I wasn’t about to sling the man over my shoulder and carry him out, either. The dispatcher asked if the man needed medical attention, and I said I didn’t know.

“If you don’t know,” he responded, “then it’s my job to send it. I’m dispatching it now.”

‘Okay then,’ I thought, and man-sat while the booksellers straightened the store all around us.

The medical attention arrived 15 minutes later, making me happy for the fact that it hadn’t been a true emergency. I heard the sirens and waited for the ambulance to pull around to the entrance.

But no, this was no ambulance. No. This was…drumroll please….

The Fire truck!

Yay firemen!

I was too tired to be as excited as I might have been otherwise, but I will say that had I known it would be (not one, but two) fire trucks (each loaded to capacity with hulking heroes) sent in the event that the man needed medical attention, I would have exaggerated his condition, which truly just seemed to me like ¡Xtreme Sleepiness! (say it in monster truck rally voice).

The ambulance was there, too, and behind it, two police cars. It was overkill, to say the least, but it’s nice to have some excitement around.

The man perked up enough to identify himself as Bill, a 50-year-old diabetic.

Then he really perked up when they stuck him on the gurney. He threw his hands behind his head in super relaxation mode, and even smiled as they wheeled him out the doors.

Another night, another emergency call at Barnes & Noble.



I joke it about somewhat now, but it was a bit heart wrenching to watch this man—who was obviously having a tough time with things—be so needy and so unkempt and so unable to care for himself.

I thought about it a lot after work last night, and I was thankful for the systems we have in place in this country to help people. I mean, this complete stranger was left in our hands. Ok, clearly I can’t do much for him myself, not being a nurse or anything. But I can call other complete strangers, and they will come take care of him. I don’t have to know them; they don’t have to know him; nevertheless, the man gets the attention he needs.

Lest I take flak from any of my Republican friends a-lurking, I will say this much:

Yes, I know these services cost taxpayers money.

Yes, I know there are plenty of people who take advantage of the services of the state and become discouraged from pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.

No, I wasn’t all that surprised to see the same man, less than 24 hours later, hospital bracelet and all, plop himself into the very same armchair (!) as I was leaving work this afternoon.

At that point, I had to laugh a little.

We all do what it takes to get by.

Like the smoker who flicks his butts into the parking lot and says, “There are people who are paid to clean this…I’m giving them job security,” I say this: let the man sleep a while. Fires are rare, and how many times can you wash the fire truck to keep busy? It’s good for us to see our neighborhood civil servants out and about and do-gooding every now and then.

And Don't You Put This in Your Blog!

Last year, while on my backpacking trip in Europe, I posted occasional blogs with the intention of highlighting certain adventures and letting all my peeps know I was alive and well (and tan even!), without having to send out individual e-mails.  Internet cafés are expensive.

What I didn’t realize until after I returned was that I had a secret reader, who was following along like so many Metro ticket stubs at the bottom of my backpack, observing my every move.  He said he was living vicariously through the blog versions of me and my meanderings.

This, it would seem, was creepy.  Only it wasn’t, because the reader was Doug, Kelsi’s dad and my long-time dad-away-from-dad.

“Hey,” he said, when he came to visit in January, “why didn’t you have a link on your blog where people could contribute money to your cause?” (I’d gone without a plan and come home when I ran out of money).  “Yeah,” he said, “I would have paid to keep you over there so I could keep reading about it.”

“Damn!”  I said.  “Now you tell me.”

I thought it was an excellent idea, if a long shot.  And I also thought it cool that he’d been reading.  Having an audience is nice.  During that same conversation, he asked why I’d stopped writing and suggested that I might want to continue posting entries even though I was home from my trip—some people were (believe it or not) interested, he offered.

‘Hmm,’ I thought.

‘Hmmm’ turned into a post about cleaning bird shit off the neighbor’s house.

Doug’s been reading my entries and feeding back ever since.  So it didn’t surprise me when he mentioned my blog while I drove him, Kelsi, and myself to Gordon Biersch last Friday night.  Kelsi made a joke about the vulnerability of living with a blogger.  “Hey!” she said, forefinger pointed straight at my ear from the passenger’s seat, “and don’t you write about this in your blog!”

“Yeah, don’t you write about us,” Doug joined in, a smile smiling through in his voice.

I told them I thought their optings-out funny because I’ve had the opposite request also, like when my friend Dave Marquez mildly chastised me for not writing about a group Trivial Pursuit match we’d both participated in, which he found plenty worthy of a blog post.  I’d responded with something like a shrug at the time.  I thought one post about the event (his, on his “Diary of a Poor Sport” blog) was probably sufficient.

Similarly, I told them, my Dad once hinted none-too-subtly that his then-recent hip replacement surgery would make for fun-filled reading.

The drive to the restaurant was short, so the conversation pretty much ended there.

We had to stand and wait a while for a table, and when our magic blinker finally buzzed and blinked, signaling the readiness of our table (I love that moment...I always feel like I won something), we were sat just the perfect distance from Quasimodal Quartet, the jazz band we’d come there to see.

QQ features a few former members of San José State’s English Department (which is why I knew of the group), and the assembled listeners included a sprinkling of acquaintances—fellow book nerds and wordy folk.

Let me repeat here that these people were acquaintances.

After we’d been sitting there a little while, one band member (who was sitting out that particular night) approached the table.

“Hey Kisa, howya doin’?” he asked.

“Oh hey, Vince.  Just fine.  Have you met my roommate, Kelsi?  Kelsi, Vince, Vince, Kelsi.”

“Oh, so you’re the roommate,” Vince said, referring to the fact that I’d mentioned Kelsi to him in some previous context.  Each presented a hand for the shaking.

“Nice to meet you,” they jinxed.

I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but I suspect Doug misinterpreted Vince’s seeming familiarity with Kelsi for the mark of a man who’d read all about her.

Doug placed a hand on Kelsi’s shoulder and said, “yeah, she’s the one in the blog,” his eyes sparkling the sparkle those of any proud father would.

I’m not sure Vince heard him, because he didn’t reply specifically except to nod and turn to Doug.

“And this is Doug,” I said.  “He’s Kelsi’s dad, out visiting from Phoenix.”

Doug extended his hand while smiling, his other hand touching his own chest apologetically: “I’m not in the blog yet,” he said, “but, hey, you never know.”  He laughed, demurring.

Vince gave another frozen-smiled nod, this one a little more apprehensive than the last.

He had absolutely no idea what Doug was talking about.

I stifled my laughter while Vince and I chatted for a few minutes, then turned to Doug when he walked away.

“He doesn’t read my blog, Doug.  I’m not sure he even knows what that is.”

“Ah, well,” he shrugged it off, and we went on taking in the jazz.

 

Doug’s presumptions were working on this main level:

1)  Everyone who has ever met me is reading my writing religiously,

and this sub-level:

        1a)  Each die-hard reader is interested in and following the stories of the action’s principle players.

I was touched by this, his vote of confidence.  He was doing his job as my dad-away-from-dad in that moment: the encouraging, the proud, the one who says, "That's my girl."

There are plenty of people who—despite their friendship and/or family relation—find it difficult to be supportive, for myriad different reasons.

“Nay.  Nay,” they say.

And then there are people who are just always, always on your side, rooting in your corner.

I had the extreme good fortune to be raised in an immediate family that doubles as a cheer squad.  “My name is [insert first and last name here] and there’s nobody in the world better than me,” is a phrase my family members often make each other utter when they sense self-doubt or sadness on the horizon.

We say this with tongues most definitely in cheek, but the sentiment behind the forced, Anthony Robbins-like self-talk remains true.  Nobody in our family feels bad about himself or herself on another’s watch.

What a beautiful thing.

With this kind of background, I was naturally affected by Doug’s idea that others should be as consistently supportive and interested in my writing as he’s been.  It was a nice, familiar feeling that made me all-over-again grateful for the swell folk that have become my chosen family…the family I’ve assembled to complement the one into which I was born.

Life has been good to me.  People have been good to me.

So, I offer this as minimum payment on my Debt of Gratitude:

Thank you, Doug, for all to read.

Foot-in-Mouth Disease

I have pretty big feet (size 9), but my mouth is apparently more than adequately large enough to accommodate them.

I’ve set a precedent in this department.

I don’t do the kind of thing where I accidentally ask a non-pregnant woman when she’s due. I know better than that. My particular brand of foot-in-mouth disease has to do with inadvertently spewing double entendres and not identifying the potential for the 2nd entendre until it’s too late.

Some previous examples:

I have a friend named Renee who will be the first to tell you that she can’t hold a note to save her life. She gets this from her Dad, whom we used to force to sing computer karaoke versions of songs like “Camp Town Races” and “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” in his thick, Indian accent. Now, admittedly, this wasn’t fair. He’d never even heard these songs before—so he had nary a tune in mind to imitate—but even if he had, I promise he wouldn’t have been able to emulate them, and later we still would have giggled into our pillows while we listened to the surreptitiously obtained audio tape of his dying-frog-like musical stylings.

Well, anyway, Renee is like that, too.

But there is one song, one song she can somehow manage to sing and sound like a human: "Amazing Grace." If you asked her about this, she’d probably say it was divine intervention…God will arm you with whatever it takes to get you to sing His praises.

One night years ago, we were driving in her car, and she wanted to sing. So, naturally, we had to sing "Amazing Grace," which we did, and I was surprised at how well it went. There were times when we—quite accidentally—fell into harmonies. I mentioned this afterward.

“That sounded really good,” I said. “Especially me.”

Renee is, above all her other good qualities, polite and humble, so she was rather shocked by my expressed, over-the-top conceit.

“Gosh,” she said, “that’s pretty egotistical of you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, honestly clueless.

“Sounded pretty good, especially me?”

“Ha ha ha! Ohmigod!” was my response. “No, that’s not what I meant! I meant that note, when we sang, “that saved a wretch like me”…the “me” sounded really nice with our harmonies.”

I was happy the thing was cleared up, but I will never be able to erase from my mind the retroactive, 10-second-long embarrassment I felt at the idea of my being such a braggart. That’s 10 seconds during which my best friend at the time thought I was no longer the person she thought I was, but, instead, somebody who would say (and mean) something like, “That sounded really good, especially me.”

I want that 10 seconds back.




About 6 years ago, I was living with my friend, Nicole, in Flagstaff, Arizona. We were fixin’ to travel to the south of Mexico, where we would volunteer as human rights observers. I’d sold my car and planned to use the money to live in Mexico (as had my friend Kelsi) and was working part-time to make extra money. Nicole didn’t have a car to sell, so she had to work much more than we did. And jobs in a college town like Flagstaff are very hard to come by.

She took a job as a chambermaid (Don’t you just love that word? It sounds so naughty). It was good work (which is to say it was work, period), except for the fact that she spent hours and hours alone everyday with nothing but her cleaning supplies and her walkman, which played a steady stream of Tori Amos, Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, and Fiona Apple. See, Nicole had just ended a relationship with her first boyfriend, and she now had more than enough time during which to drown herself in mood music and to think about the relationship upside-down and inside-out and any other way it could possibly be thought about. This was not a good thing.

But I digress.

In the evenings, Nicole would come home, melt into a chair, and tell me about her day. Then we’d move onto girl talk, laugh and be silly for a while, then call Kelsi and take off in the 1972, magenta VW bug that was our one remaining vehicle to share, and find something fun to do.

In the midst of one of these pre-adventure conversations, Nicole came out with this one:

“Oh hey, I meant to tell you, I found my first condom today.”

I went immediately to a place you never want to go to in reference to your friend, and my response was, “Eww, you SAVED it?!”

She looked at me like you’d look at a person who just mentioned he’d had his eyeball pierced (on purpose).

“What?!”

Then she realized what I’d thought she meant, and she pictured me, picturing her, poring over little trinkets, ticket stubs, photos, letters, and other special mementos in a little secret box and coming across—in the midst of it all—the first condom she’d ever used, all crusty and stinky and memorable-like.

The scary thing is that’s exactly what I’d pictured, but I’d gone a little further, imagining her picking it up, rubbing it oh-so-lightly against her cheek, and thinking fond, sexy thoughts about her ex.

When I realized what she’d really meant (that she found a used condom in a hotel room she was cleaning that day), and she realized what I meant, we peed our pants (or, I should say, we thought it was kind of funny).

Now that I think about it, that was more a foot-in-mouth moment for Nicole than for me. Or maybe it was one, each: ‘How could Kisa think that?!,’ she wondered.

‘How could I think that?!’ I wondered, in turn.

And we each had 10 seconds of life we wished we could just say “erase, erase” to, and start over again.

***

All of this was meant to be background information. Jeez I’m longwinded these days.

Which brings me to these days…two days ago, to be exact.

I’d been working backup on a register for a little while, when an older man shuffled up to my station and set a magazine and book on the counter.

The magazine caught my eye—the most recent issue of Esquire. Donald Trump is on the cover with a bunch of huge, bling-blingie, hip-hop-style gold chains around his neck.

I picked up the items to ring them up, then made a rather lame attempt at small talk:

“That’s an interesting cover,” I said.

When the man didn’t respond, I looked up at him for a moment and smiled. He was staring at me with a slight scowl.

‘Best drop the small talk,’ I thought.

I asked the obligatory questions, “Do you have a Barnes & Noble Membership? No? Have you heard about the program? Would you like your receipt in the bag?”

He grunted his responses in my general direction and I began to wonder, ‘What gives?’

I wondered until I picked up his items to put them in the bag. It was then I noticed the cover of his book.

It was some kind of erotica, and the slightly smoky cover featured a ripped-stomached young man with an orgasmic look on his clean-cut face, as he was in the throes of an oral sexual act with (I’m assuming, based on the look of the back of the person’s head) another young man.

So, on the shopping list that day: The latest issue of Esquire, and a little gay erotica. Which (of course) not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Except I flashed back to the beginning of the transaction and my innocent little, “now that’s an interesting cover.”

And the silence, then the scowl, then the grunting…it all began to make all-too-perfect sense.

How to salvage this moment? This misunderstanding?

My weak effort: “You know, that picture of Donald Trump…I never saw him with necklaces like that before,” I offered, a tiny question mark hovering at the end.

What was that supposed to mean? I mean, really. Like when I mentioned the interesting nature of the cover, I meant that I just hadn’t seen Donald Trump in necklaces quite like that before? Which—come to think of it—is what I meant. But is that even worthy of comment? How many types of necklaces had I seen Donald Trump photographed wearing? Or how many pictures had I seen of Donald Trump at all? What’s more, who gives a damn?

The man looked at me with a face that said, “uh…yeah.”

That, I learned, is just one of the things wrong with making small talk. From now on, I’m working through transactions in silence…speak only when spoken to, and then, only if what’s spoken is interesting enough to warrant a response. This includes questions.

I’m kidding, of course.

Suffering from foot-in-mouth disease does make life a bit more interesting. But here’s the thing: In considering the 10 second’s worth of misunderstanding, I always cringe, even years later, at the thought of being so grossly mis-taken. And what really horrifies me is the thought that I’ve been misunderstood in similar ways countless other times, of which I never did become aware. How many other people are out there thinking I’m an egotistical perv and a homophobe to boot?

Very disturbing, and, yes, a little funny.

I’m teetering out here on this limb. Tell me this happens to you, too.

A Penny Saved is Worth Two in a Bush

Last week I was teaching a lesson to my English classes, during which I introduced a lot of new vocabulary.  My students were studying a drawing of a scene at a park and trying to name all the English words they could.
 
They all wanted to know what the things floating in the pond were called.
 
“Oh, those are “ducks,”” I said.
 
“Hmmm,” said Rosi, “Hay veces que el pato toma mucha agua, y veces que ni agua bebe.”
 
I looked at her.  “There are times when the duck drinks a lot of water, and times when it doesn’t drink at all?”
 
She nodded a little doubtfully, then repeated the phrase.
 
“What the hell does that mean?”  I asked.
 
She started laughing, along with my other students.  “I don’t know,” she said, “it’s a dicho [a saying].”
 
Alfonso piped up:  “I’ve never heard that one before.”
 
“Yeah,” Rosi said, “me neither, but my friend said it once like it was famous.”
 
"Your friend," he said, "she is Mexican?"
 
"Yeah."
 
"Funny," he said, "I never heard it in Mexico."
 
“Well, is that even true?” I asked.  “I don’t even think that’s true.  I mean, I don’t know that much about ducks.  But even if it is true, is that different from any other living thing?  Why ducks?”
 
I likened it to “feast of famine,” or “all or nothing,” and figured it was one of those things that just don’t translate.
 
But translation problems aside, I’ve never been good at adages, or clichés.  Sometimes it’s a comprehension problem, like with “A penny saved is a penny earned.”  What is that supposed to mean?  Does it suggest that if you were able to save the penny, then you must have deserved it?  Or does it have to do with interest, as in, your penny will become two pennies--one saved and one earned--with time?  I never gleaned much from that one.
 
But most of the time, it’s a simple inability to get it right, and I think that has to do with hanging out with Kelsi for 12 years or so.  My gal Kelsi, you see, is rather creative in the cliché department (paradoxical as that may seem).
 
It’s not that she’s trying to be different, but the real ones just don’t stick with her.
 
One time, she was talking about how she was excited about something she didn’t want to be that excited about, in case it didn’t pan out in the end.  “Yeah,” she said, “I would like for it to happen, of course, but I’m just not gonna put all my chickens over there.”
 
Our friend Nicole and I looked at each other quizzically.  “All your chickens over there?”  we asked.
 
What she meant, clearly, was that she wasn’t going to put all her eggs in one basket.
 
That one, I could deal with.  You know, maybe she didn’t want to put all her chickens in one chicken-retainer-area because what if that one burned down and all the chickens went with it?  Makes sense.
 
On another occasion, she advised a friend of ours to just “let dead dogs die.”
 
Well, yeah.  I’d agree with that one.
 
We’ve both had problems with those two damned birds.  Should you not hide your light under two birds in a bushel?  Or you can kill 2, but they're worth more if they're alive, in your hand?
 
Why is it “Can’t see the forest for the trees?”  Why not “through the trees”?
 
Can anyone really take him or herself seriously when throwing around phrases like this?
 
The worst, though…the one that always gets me…
 
The other night I was playfully reprimanding a coworker who was being mean to his boss, who’d just sprung for his dinner.  “Hey,” I said, “don’t bite a gift horse in the face!”
 
Or was that “look at the hand of the horse that feeds you”?  “Kick a gift horse in the knee?”
 
I say we erase all those silly clichés from our minds.  The reason they don’t stick is that they bear little relevance to our experiences today.  Who even knows what a gift horse is?  Would you recognize one if you met one?  What is that--a horse somebody gave you, right?
 
How many people are out there killing birds (my landlord aside)?  And when’s the last time you were loading dozens of eggs into one basket (indeed, ALL the eggs you had!), then thought better of it?
 
Kelsi had an interesting point: she said she can’t remember the clichés because she’s too creative; her mind won’t let her recycle the same hackneyed phrase over and over.  And I think there’s something to it.  I also feel lucky to be privy to her word incarnations.  They make me stop and think.
 
Hmm, maybe an apple a day is worth a pound of cure.
 
Maybe I should nip it at the heels.

Maybe I shouldn’t give an inch…they’ll take all my chickens.

Babette, The Secret Service, Smokey Robinson, & Me

We got the news on a Tuesday.

I came to work at noon and was stopped in the doorway by my store manager, Tony.

“You know those display changes I told you about?” he asked in his slight Texas drawl.

“Yeah, what about ‘em?”

“I want you to put that all on hold for a coupla weeks,” he said. “We got somethin’ much bigger to work on now.”

I looked at him, anticipating the news, and he motioned for me to follow him to the managers’ office. While I followed, I tried to imagine what could be “much bigger” than completely rearranging three full sections of the store.

“Sit down,” he said.

I complied, then watched him smirk for a few seconds before I gave in. “Tony, what is it?” I asked.

He smiled for a moment more, then came out with it: “Bill Clinton,” he said.

“What?!”

“Bill Clinton.”

"...is coming to our store?”

"...is coming to our store.”

“When?”

“The 29th.”

“Of this month?”

“Of this month.”

I was back on my feet by that time. “No WAY,” I protested, a full smile taking over the bottom half of my face.

He took in my reaction for a moment, seeming to enjoy my bubbling-over-ness.

“Way,” he nodded.

And that’s how it started.

***

Just under a week later, there were customers lined up outside the front doors to be the first to purchase Clinton’s memoir, My Life.

The press (and, hence, the public) had gotten wind of our news five days earlier, and all the days in between had been spent—more than anything else—answering phone calls about the event.

We were given little information, but that didn’t stop customers from asking any possible question you could (never) dream up and expecting not only answers, but the answers they wanted to hear:

“I live in Missouri, and so I can’t make it to the signing. But is there any way you could send me a signed copy of the book?” Sure thing, Ma’am. In addition to the 1,000 books he signs that day for customers who will have been camping out for upwards of 35 hours, eating nothing but 7-11 food and pooping in Porta Potties, as well as the 1,000 he signs earlier that day for customers at another bookstore in Berkeley, we’ll make sure he signs just 1 more—specially—for the woman in Missouri who couldn’t make it.

“If I get my book signed, but then I read it and don’t like it, may I still return it?” This woman had never heard of eBay(?) And another thing: does that mean she always reads through books first and returns them if she "doesn't like them?" How cheap and shifty is that?!

An interesting phenomenon occurred.  It seemed that, when it came to an event like this, people had never been more proud to be handicapped. All of a sudden, everyone was an invalid:

“I just had a surgery [no mention of what type of surgery; it could have been oral surgery for all we knew]. Will there be a special line for me?”

And not only that, bona fide handicapped people became a precious commodity:

“My Mom’s in a wheelchair, and I have to push it. Can we get in the front of the line?”

But the worst was the man who came out with this one after his 45 minutes of attempting to finagle special treatment proved fruitless:

“Well, my 9-year old son had cancer before. Will there be a special line for him?”

“You say he had cancer before?” I asked. “We...I mean...can he stand in a line? Can he stand?”

“Well, yes. But, I mean, he’s still...you know, I mean, he’s kind of sick.”

People will stop at nothing. Just when that kid thought he’d defeated cancer, just when he was trying to put the near-death experience behind him, his dad jumped at the chance to (if this is at all possible) relapse him himself. Cheesh.

But aside from all the phone calls (which were actually kind of fun to answer when the callers were excited and not trying to convince us they were special), there was a lot of work to be done.

A lot of work.

There were walls to be painted, carpets to be cleaned, displays to be merchandized, shelves to be dusted, books to be shelved, café items to be ordered, and everything to be everythinged.

It’s not that we feared Bill Clinton would run his forefinger over our dusty shelves, clicking his tongue and vowing never to come back to our filthy store. But having a former president as a guest tends to attract, well, everybody. All of a sudden we had managers from all over the district pledging their “help” for the big day. And the bigwigs…the bigwigs were coming out of the woodwork. With all those Suits on the way, the store had to be at what our manager—who’s sometimes given to hyperbole—called, officially, 112½ %.

And so we painted and we cleaned and we merchandized and we dusted and we shelved and we ordered and we everythinged.

Twice, for good measure.

***

As the Big Day came closer, our collective nerves grew shorter. We all wanted to delete the words “line,” “book,” and “sorry Sir, one-legged people still have to stand in the initial line for a wristband, just like everybody else” from our vocabularies.

And some people began to show rabid enthusiasm. I heard from Tim—a self-proclaimed loyal customer who is apparently at our store “all the time” (though I’d never seen him)—no less than 5 times in the days leading up to the event. I think he figured a personal relationship with a manager would earn him the necessary ins.

And then, of course, there was Babette.

My mistake with Babette was to happen to be the manager on duty the first time she called. “This is Kisa, how may I help you?” I’d asked.

“Hi Kisa. My name is Babette and I just got out of the hospital. I got out 1 day earlier than I was supposed to, actually, just so I could make it to the Bill Clinton signing.”

‘Great,’ I thought, ‘here we go.’

But it turned out Babette wasn’t asking for special treatment. She was just sharing this particular detail of her life in the same way she would eventually share many particular details of her life with me during her bi-hourly cell phone update calls from the road.

Babette, you see, was driving up from Texas.

I’d given many verbal sets of directions to the store that week, but directions to the store from Texas?

“I’m just outside of L.A.,” she said, during a phone call Saturday afternoon. “Is there a line yet?” (Note here, the event wasn’t to happen until Tuesday night).

“No, Babette. There’s still no line.”

“Yes, but have you overheard anybody talking about camping out?”

“Well, yes. I know some people plan to.”

“Well, are they there yet?”

“Uh, no. There’s no line yet.”

“Do you know when they’re planning to begin camping out?”

“No, I really don’t know for sure.”

“Well, I’ll get there some time tomorrow morning. I’m going to get a hotel outside of San José. Or do you think I should get one near you? I mean, is there one with windows that overlook your store so I’ll be able to know the second the line starts to form?”

And on, and on.

She was asking for me by name when she called thereafter. “There’s my favorite bookseller,” she’d say, when I picked up the phone.

“Hi, Babette,” I’d choke out.

“I’ve talked to you so many times,” she said. “I can’t wait to meet you.”

“Yeah…me too.”

***

The magic phone call came late Sunday night, and shockingly, it wasn’t from Babette.

“Hi,” a young man’s voice said. “My name’s Rick, and, uh, my friends and I are a few hours outside of San José right now. Is there a line yet?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Well, do you mind if we camp out?”

“Go for it,” I said. “It looks like you’ll be Mr. Line Starter Man.”

“Cool,” he said. “We’ll be there soon.”

And so Rick came.

And shortly thereafter, Babette came.

And after that, they just kept coming.

***

The morning of the event, I spent an inexcusable amount time getting dressed. I wasn’t exactly banking on meeting Mr. Clinton, but just in case, just in case…did I think he’d like the black slacks and jacket or the dark blue with pin stripes? Or should I wear a dress?

For the record, it was the dark blue with pin stripes.

When I arrived at work at 11:30 in the morning, there were people lined up all the way around the back of the parking lot. This was—by all accounts—a significant change from earlier in the morning, when the line had formed an entire loop around the store, continuing all the way down the street neighboring it, stopping somewhere near the freeway underpass.

Those people had changed their minds about standing in line and were now inside the store, forming mini-mob scenes around each individual manager, screaming like mental patients who’d just found out Soylent Green was (indeed) people.

I should have known the day wasn’t going well when the first thing I said to my boss was, “nice bullhorn.”

From all accounts I could gather, some kind of mayhem had broken out around 4:00 a.m., and all the commotion was a bit much for our rent-a-cops to deal with it. Somehow, people jumped over a fence and cut in line and all these people who thought getting there at 2:00 a.m. would be plenty to ensure them a signing, got—ultimately—swept out of the line.

And they were pissed.

There was a smallish coup, during which some people returned their Bill Clinton books and cheered each other as they did so. I don’t know that I was particularly affected by these people, who must not have been huge fans of the former president if they had no interest in his book beyond his signing it. But it was stressful, nevertheless.

And I understood their frustration. Some of them were very polite and pleaded their cases in civilized manners that made sense.

But there were the others who just wanted to yell at somebody, and for them, it was hard to muster sympathy.

Some people truly seemed to think meeting Mr. Clinton was not a privilege, but a right, which I found very confusing. How could he have possibly signed the books of all the people who thought he was cool? There just wasn’t enough time in the day.

My favorite customer was one who brought his walker in to illustrate the extent to which he was not qualified to stand in line. And he wasn’t among the fortunate to receive the necessary wristband. He was chewing out a completely innocent employee whom we’d borrowed from a nearby store, and he wouldn’t let up.

“Excuse me, Sir, may I help you with something?”

“Yeah. Are you a manager?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I just want you to know that this is a black eye on the face of Barnes & Noble. And this is just the beginning. It’s going to get much, much worse.” He stared at me unblinkingly, waiting for me to react in shock and horror and a million ass-kissing apologies.

I guess my, “I’m sorry you weren’t able to get a wristband, sir, and I thank you for your feedback” wasn’t really what he was looking for, so he went on:

“And you should know that my son works for ABC news, channel 7.”

“Okay.”

And he just kept staring at me. I had to excuse myself after a few rounds of this because there was a fire to put out at a cash register. He came over there after a few minutes and interrupted a conversation I was having with another customer.

“This is a bad, bad thing you’ve done for San José," he said, shaking his head dramatically. "A bad, bad thing.”

“Okay, thank you sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“And just so you know, my son is Michael Something, ABC news, channel 7. Okay?!”

“Okay. And yeah, I actually heard you when you said that earlier.”

I had to wonder how many times this man had been unhappy in the past and thrown around the name of his son, as if his son were just around every corner, waiting for somebody to screw his dad over and ready to launch a full-scale investigation.

The man shuffled off with his walker, in search (I can only imagine) of another person in a suit to whom he could drop Michael Something’s name.

Shortly after that I was called to the café for reasons I can’t remember. At the counter stood an elderly female customer in a huge, aqua-colored muumuu with big, tropical purple flowers on it. She looked at me, read my name tag, and said, “You’re Kisa?!”

“Yes,” I said. “And you must be Babette.”

“How’d you know?”

“I don’t know. Just a guess.”

“I got my wristband,” she said, shaking her fist in the air and beaming the happiest smile I’d seen all day.

“Congratulations,” I said, and truly meant it. And for the first time since my arrival hours earlier, I felt good.

***

There were, following, about 5 hours of relative calm. I took the opportunity to walk around outside and meet—among others— Rick, Mr. Line Starter Man, a friendly young guy who got his 15 minutes of fame on all four local news shows, including the Spanish station.

At that point, the fans were as mellow as people who’ve been sitting in the sun for two days should be, reading and eating and playing guitar and cards and Gameboy, and talking. They brought their lawn chairs, their umbrellas, their water bottles, their children, and—most of all—their Anti-Bush t-shirts. There was a like-minded happiness hovering in the air and, below that layer, a nervous sort of anticipation that can only come when people are about to experience one of the most memorable moments of their lives.

The feeling was there for me, too. I know I’ll never forget the trickle of unknown liquids dripping down my leg as Kenneth (a fellow manager) and I carried bags and bags of heaping garbage to the dumpsters around the corner of the store. “It builds character,” he said, when a woman nearby made a comment about the yuckiness of the work in which he and I were engaged.

‘Amen,’ I thought—a little manual labor is good for the soul.

***

About four hours before Mr. Clinton’s scheduled arrival, the Secret Service arrived. They looked just exactly like you’d imagine they’d look, wearing near-identical grayish-brown suits and, yes (some of them), sunglasses (they were standing outside for much of the time). They all looked to be in their early thirties, handsome, capable, and the most serious bunch of dudes you’ve ever seen.

They walked the perimeter, peeked under things, set up barriers, chatted with us, and mostly stood around looking like the bad asses they were.

The SJPD brought in the German shepherds in the early evening, and they sniffed every sniffable thing in the entire store. We watched, and ate, and watched, and waited.

***

At 8:00 p.m., I took to my post, an area near some shelves that had been cleared away for the placement of bags. People would have to check in their belongings, be wanded by the Secret Service, and go forth to meet Mr. Clinton with nothing in their hands but their soon-to-be-very-valuable copies of his memoir.

We weren’t sure which entrance he’d chose, so my cohorts, Beum, Traci, and I, tried to relax and chat while watching for a glimpse of the familiar gray hair and feeling around for a tiny waft of the air of presidential-ness.

A loud cheering coming from the customers in the café, who were seated a good bit higher than the floor level and could see better, alerted us that the moment had arrived. Our District Manager, Greg, walked by and said, “guys...we’re rolling.” And he gave a definitive nod at the end.

We’re rolling.

The words never sounded less cheesy and more crucial than they did at that moment.

Oh my God, we’re rolling. Whatever that means, guys, we’re doing it. Here we go…

The line started moving from the front, and then all of a sudden, they were there: the fans, already done with the experience and ready to collect their bags.

Bill Clinton, you see, is a very fast book signer.

But the people didn’t seem to mind at all. They emerged flushed and joyful and some of them in tears. The women swooned. The men were proud. The kids had no idea what the hell was going on, but they were excited, too.

I kept trying to catch a peek in between two curtains that would separate every now and then. But there were hoards of people standing in the store behind me (behind rope barriers) trying to do the same thing, so the Secret Service man and woman standing in front of the curtains repeatedly drew them shut.

Then, he did it. The Secret Service man looked at me and gave a little wave. “Come here,” it said.

I walked over to him.

“You wanna see?” he asked.

I felt like an adolescent boy who’d just been offered a gander at his friend’s sister’s boobies.

“Yeah,” I said, my face—I’m sure—glowing all kinds of pure, Technicolor girliness.

He drew back the curtain a little. “Go ahead,” he said, and smiled a smile that said this was one of his favorite parts of the job: helping make a person feel that kind of yay.

In front of a black curtain, underneath bright semi-spotlights, stood my president, the one I’d voted for the year I was first eligible, the one I hadn’t quite let go of yet.

He was smiling and handsome and attentive, never looking up from the people immediately in front of him, whose books he was signing and whose hands he shook.

It was so hard not to gawk, but I pulled myself away; there were, after all, bags to be put away and then retrieved. But a moment later, I had another go.

A Secret Service man came out from behind the curtain and asked a nearby co-worker, Ellen, whether there was “anything we could do about the music?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “He wants it turned down?”

“No,” he said, sounding offended at the idea. "He wants it turned up. We’re rocking back here.”

She looked at me.

“Well,” I said, “there’s a volume control, but it’s in the manager’s office. I’d turn it up for you, but I’m not allowed back there.”

“I’ll take you back there,” he said. And there was that same Secret Service man smile. Like he just knew he was making my night.

We walked behind the curtain and I tried to maintain conversation with him while thinking, ‘I’m in the same [albeit large and sprawling] room with Bill Clinton.’

I know this sounds silly, but it’s difficult to describe the level of energy and excitement in the room. It was more than I’d ever imagined it would be.

“He loves Motown,” the Secret Service man (Cory) said.

“Oh, you mean he chose this mix?”

“Absolutely. It’s his favorite.”

Which just endeared him to me even more.

Once the music was turned up, the mood in the store went from jovial to ecstatic. Everyone was laughing and dancing and singing (because everybody knows the words to Motown hits). I laughed when I had to go retrieve bags, which were collected in the area near where the Secret Service men searched people; it was funny to see these Most Serious Men in the Whole World barking orders like “spread your arms!,” and “turn around!,” and “put that down!” with this super jumping Motown music in the background. I don’t know where they find people like that, but I’m glad they do, because somebody has to keep a straight face when the rest of us are feeling silly and there are people to be searched. I mean, I’m sure that comes in handy.

We went through this routine for about an hour and a half: get the bag, give it a number, set it on the shelf, oh! here comes the person, “how’d it go? was it worth it?,” “yes, it was amazing,” get the number, grab the bag, give it back, see ya later.

There was an impatient mob of people outside who had the idea they might get their books signed if Mr. Clinton decided to stick around after the first 1,000 people had passed through. At one point they started chanting, “Please sign our books, please sign our books!!!” with so much force, it ended up sounding like the rudest polite request ever made, rhythmically, to the beat of angry fists. Those chanters put a bit of a damper on the moods of those leaving (otherwise) happy—the lucky ones. I thought they were going to get violent until the bullhorn came out again, asking them to shut the hell up and leave us all in peace...only, you know, in a more diplomatic way. Surprisingly, they mostly complied.

And when the last few customers trickled through the line and collected their things, a quiet settled in among us.

We weren’t sure what to do next, so we all began to congregate near the bag check and wait for some kind of sign. There we were, about 60 employees looking around at each other and the Secret Service men and hardly saying a word. I felt like I was in church, only some kind of newfangled, fun one where they blasted Motown music and the president popped in for a visit every now and then.

And then, even the music stopped.

“Okay,” Tony practically whispered, “let’s everyone get in a single-file line.”

We did so, still not quite sure what would happen next.

Then the curtains parted and we noiselessly filed into the room and took places on the media staging that had been set up directly in front of the signing table. Mr. Clinton didn’t look up at us then. He stood talking quietly with an older couple that seemed to be friends of his. We watched while they chatted, laughing every now and then like talking with the leader of the free world for eight years running was the most everyday thing they do.

And we still weren’t saying a thing, just watching as if through a two-way mirror, seeing something we weren’t supposed to see.

And then he shook hands with the couple, said “goodbye,” and turned to us.

“Is this the class portrait?” he asked.

We laughed nervously. He looked down at the place that had been cleared for him to sit, surrounded by young women, while the photographer took his light readings.

“Ladies,” he said, in his Arkansas twang, “I’m not sure you want to be seen with me like this,” he joked. And he sat.

One shot, two, three for good measure: we smiled the smiles of our lives.

The pictures done, he turned and began shaking hands. I couldn’t hear what anybody was saying to him, and I wasn’t sure I knew what to say myself.

When my moment came, I managed a simple, “thank you,” and tried to freeze-dry in my mind the two seconds when I held in my hand the hand of a man who’d held in his hand the hands of hundreds of country leaders and diplomats, the hands of millions of fellow Americans, the hand of John F. Kennedy himself.

When he was done shaking, he looked around. “I always thought I’d like to work in a bookstore,” he said. “Now, we’re in the children’s section? It’s huge. It’s real nice.” He walked around admiring the displays, and I thought of Sharon—the children’s department lead—all her hard work being taken in and appreciated by one of the most important figures of our century, indeed, our entire country’s history, and I was joyful.

***

The night didn’t end like that, though. There were René and Kelly, two women who had been working away and hadn’t even realized we were all posing for pictures and meeting Mr. President. And they were, of course, both in tears.

So that was terrible to witness...the loss of a moment that could never been regained or done over.

And there were all the displays to put back in order, the line posts to be carted off, the food to be cleared, the signing area to be disassembled, the receiving room to be rearranged, and the closing numbers to be run.

And then we’d go.

Except, not quite. Tony issued one final directive as he drove away from his 20-hour day, preparing to start all over again a mere 6 hours later. “Kenneth,” he said, “let’s get this trash in the parking lot taken care of.”

It didn’t sound so bad at first. When I heard, I told Kenneth I’d be out in a minute to help. And when I saw what awaited us there, I wanted to run back inside and hole myself up in the deepest, indeed even the creepiest (where nobody would look for me), darkest corner I could find.

Thousands of people sitting in the sun for two days, not wanting to visit a trash can and accidentally lose a place in line, produce staggering amounts of waste.

Staggering.

We both took our coats off, rounded up our fellow victims, grabbed trash bags and gloves, and set to stooping and sweeping and picking up between thumb and forefinger some of the nastiest who-knows-what type of remnants imaginable. There were diapers and Popsicle sticks and burger wrappers and newspapers and Coke cans and cigarette butts; everything was sticky, and everything stunk. It dripped on us and gooed on us and clung to us.

At one point I stopped and looked up. The lights in the parking lot were low, so all I could see were the silhouettes of my coworkers outlined as they performed a task I’m sure they never dreamed would be par for the course, working in a bookstore. But I felt—in that moment—immensely proud. We’d just been through, I think, the toughest week and a half ever experienced at our store. And here we were, still giddy enough from our encounter to hunker down and do some grunge work.

And I looked down at my hand. The hand that had so warmly welcomed that of an historic figure an hour earlier was now reaching into the deep recesses of garbage piles and emerging covered in filth.

And I thought, that’s just how life is.

It’s a precious and disgusting mix of real and fantastical, of discouraging and invigorating, of the things you have to get done, and the elevated experiences that make all of it worth it.

I went home and settled into the most satisfying bath of my life, and half an hour later I watched while the drain carried away the sweat and the grime, and the magic of the evening.

Three Horses per Month and Water for Everybody

For anyone who doesn’t know, besides my job at Barnes & Noble, I have a part-time job teaching adult ESL (English as a second language) to employees of Whole Foods. It’s a pretty sweet deal for the students because they don’t have to pay for the classes or even leave the store. And some of them truly appreciate it and work hard, showing up for every single twice/week class and studying enthusiastically when they’re at home.

Francisco is not one of those students. Now, he definitely wants to learn, especially because he’s been working at Whole Foods for roughly 15 years and can’t be promoted any further until his English skills improve.

And he tries. But he has some deeply ingrained bad English-speaking habits that are incredibly difficult to break and, well, he doesn’t do his homework.

Anyway, I didn’t bring him up so I could publish his progress report, but I wanted to give a little background.

So, the other day Francisco was telling the story of a party a friend once threw him when he was working at a Whole Foods in Palo Alto. This is how he tells it:

“She make me a party and she rent a, it’s a, how you call? Like a when you have wedding?”

“A reception hall?” I ask.

“Yes, well, and we have dancing and carne asada. I make the salads and also some soup. We have DJ he play the música, and it was the best party in my life: water for EVERYBODY!”

He says this last part while spreading his arms wide to illustrate the amount of people who enjoyed this particular aspect of the party. His eyes are all lit up, like he is just so proud for having pulled off water for everybody.

“Water?!” I ask. “What do you mean? You just served water?

“Yes,” he says, still beaming his self-congratulatory smile, “for everybody.”

I was laughing, but I was also trying to figure out what was so special about this water and his ability to procure it for everybody. Was it a drought year? Was it that they were extra hot & sweaty from dancing and he was happy there was enough for everyone? And who serves water at a party anyway?

His classmates were all laughing at him until he clarified that he was talking about aguas, fresh drinks they make in Mexico using water and other things like rice or fruits (horchata, tamarindo, those sorts of drinks). He was proud because he made the drinks, and apparently they were a big hit. Oh, he hates alcohol and wouldn’t allow any of his guests to drink it, so I guess he figured he’d better have a good alternative.

Somehow, despite the fact that he speaks English a lot better than my beginning students, Francisco’s particular brand of miscommunication always makes me have to try (often horribly unsuccessfully) and stifle a giggle.

The other day he was talking about how he bought a house in a town called Madera and was going to be renting it out. It’s a big house, but he’s renting part of it to a family of three for only $300/month. We were all intrigued, wondering how he’d make the payments if he had to pay rent here, too, and he was charging so little.

“Oh,” he said. “There’s another man, he wanna stay there. I gonna rent him a room for $300/month and 3 horses.”

“Three horses?” asked Rosi, another student.

“Yes, $300 a month and 3 horses.”

“What do you mean, you’re charging him 3 horses per month?” I asked.

“Yes, 3 horses.”

“Horses are very expensive,” said Rosi.

An image came to mind of a future snapshot of Francisco standing outside his home in Madera, surrounded by hundreds of horses, which have been breeding and making him a rich man. In the snapshot, he’s wearing his same ultra-happy smile and spreading his arms to show off the fruits of his ingenuity.

I had to come to and get to the bottom of this.

“What are you gonna do with all those horses?” I asked. "How can he afford to give you 3 horses per month?!"

“Whachyou mean?" Francisco asked. "It’s just 3 horses.”

“Oh, 3 horses total?”

“Yeah, he keep 3 horses there. I charge him $100/month each horse.”

“Oh!” The collective light bulb went on and we all relaxed a little, now that we didn’t have to go on and worry where Francisco would get the money to feed 3 new horses every month.



I love my English classes. And trying to help my students through their struggles with this language makes me appreciate it more, not in spite of all of its idiosyncrasies, but because of them.

Many concepts I teach require tangential explanations of the exceptions to the rules, the connotations if you say the thing the wrong way, the 16 alternate meanings (do you know how many ways you can use the words “pick up” together?), or the 6 words that either look just like it and mean something different, or sound just like it but are spelled differently and mean something else entirely.

You know, it feels good to know something well. And it’s FUN to meditate on a question a student asks and think, ‘how do we use that? Would that be more or less polite? And why?'

And also, my students know Spanish with an intimacy that my 2nd language learner skills will never allow me. I think it must feel good for them to know something well, too. I can see it in their faces when I ask them how to say something in Spanish, or when I say something wrong and they have to correct me.

There’s a feeling of accomplishment when you can confidently say, “I know this. No, I KNOW this. And I can help you.”

And having something to teach to people who want to learn is rather addictive. So I’m going to grad school in the Spring and learn me some more. :)