Monkalicious

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

2007-01-31T17:36:00.000-08:00

This is the first time I've realized there's a grammatical problem with that prayer, but I'm not actually laying myself down to sleep anyway. I'm gonna give a little nap time to my blog.

I've decided to start taking writing more seriously, and with that comes putting more effort into it. It's hard for me to envision doing that when the ease of instant publishing remains just a laptop away. I've begun writing with other, more accountable goals in mind (that means submitting it, too. Yikes!).

I want to thank all the wonderful people who have read Monkalicious over the past 4 years and offered feedback. I've had a lot of fun sharing my stories with you.

Wishing love and joy to you all.

~Kisa

Earth or Bust

2006-12-01T20:24:00.000-08:00

Are UFOs really graduate students from the future, researching their past?

Hell if I know! But it does bring up an interesting possibility. Make that an interesting set of possibilities, with infinite outcomes and mind-blowing disillusionments. Mind blowing!

This may sound like a Blogger profile question or the headline to a National Enquirer article, but it's actually the promo line on a full-color new novel advertisement I received at the bookstore today.

This, my friends, is the kind of thing that gives the Sci-Fi genre a bad name. I'm told by many that science fiction novels can be interesting, can be good, but I just can't put my preconceived notions aside long enough to pick one up. I just know that the minute I read about a character with a name like Zorfax or a place like Mypos (oh wait, that was Balki's home island in "Perfect Strangers") I'll be turned off to the point of chucking the book across the room.

People have told me that this instinct speaks of my lack of imagination or appreciation for creativity. Perhaps. But I've always felt that the most interesting stories are the true ones, or the very plausible ones at least. I love movies and novels based on real-life events, which is probably why I love the "fourth genre"--creative non-fiction--encompassing interviews, personal essays, auto/biographies, etc. It's also probably why I blog.

My honey and I once watched a movie that I can't remember the name of, in which a couple gets lost at sea after scuba diving. They have some interesting conversations, a little bit of argument, and in the end they're both gobbled up by sharks! For some reason, I had been under the impression that the movie was based on a true story, but even if it was, the entire movie was hypothetical because nobody survived to tell of those interactions between the couple.

In a way, it was a creative imagining of the storyteller, but I just felt ripped off. I spent two hours putting up with an annoying couple, only to have them disappear in the end, engendering absolutely no emotional reaction on my part. I'm not saying I only like true stories, but I don't like so-called true stories that are really all fiction. I'm not sure that movie was based on a true story, though.

I guess I'm a little given to life-affirming stories, even if (maybe even especially if) they involve much pain and trial. I just need a little something to hang onto.

But this is away from my original point, which is that I don't care about the UFO graduate student plot line or any other plot line involving outer space, time travel (ok, "Back to the Future" caught my interest at the time), or names that sound like prescription drugs.

David Letterman once had a top ten list titled something like "Top Ten Ways to Get Kicked Out of the Library." One of the ways was to sweep all the books in the Science Fiction section off the shelves, shouting, "Nothing but Earthling lies!!!"

I loved that one.

Workplace Shenanigans

2006-11-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I went to the bi-annual regional meeting for my company. The first day was spent in a hotel conference room, discussing financials and standards and all that stuff. A day full of customer-is-always-right reminders and strategies meant not for "solving problems," but for "addressing challenges" and "capitalizing on opportunities." Oh jeez. But the next day was more interactive and fun, because we went to another bookstore to learn about what they're doing and how. This store is by far the biggest in the region, serving a school with a huge enrollment. The text manager and store manager of this store have about 20 years experience between them, and for this reason the store serves as a pilot for all the new service programs and accompanying software the company rolls out (how's that for corporate speak?).

For one part of the day, the meeting's attendees were split into groups and set up to travel through 8 different stations in this other bookstore, listening to mini-presentations given by employees of this other store and watching demonstrations on how to use software .

So, introduction over...

The first station my group went to was in the receiving area, and we were to listen to the store's Receiving Manager as he explained new methods for receiving product. From the outset, things were a little strange because our receiving guy wasn't there yet; we'd arrived earlier than he was told we would, so he had to come off a break to come talk to us.

I put myself in this guy's shoes (we'll call him Tim), and imagined how much he was hating all of us in that moment. If you've never worked in retail, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Nobody is busy at all times. Nobody. But when people come to visit from another store, particularly managers and their bosses, you have to be on your best behavior, cleaning things you've never even looked at before, moving shit from one useful place that makes sense to some other place that isn't useful and doesn't make sense just to look busy, censoring your comments, smiling, you know, all the stuff you would never do on a normal day.

This is especially true in the receiving department. I know because I spent a lot of time working in a receiving department, and it was fun as long as nobody in a suit was around. The people who work there work there for a reason. They want to wear jeans to work, they don't want to deal with customers, and they want to listen to music that would never make it onto the sales floor. Basically, it's hard physical work, but few headaches and even less ass-kissing. The receiving department is also the place where other employees go to escape the sales floor and the customers that come with it. It's the place where they can go to be themselves.

So here's this guy trying to enjoy his break, and along comes a group of corporate monkeys, there to rain on his parade. He seemed to be making the best of it, and when he got over his initial annoyance, he was friendly and helpful.

Here's the scene: he's standing facing us in front of a waist-high counter, on which sits a computer screen. We're all looking between him and the computer screen, watching what he's doing and asking questions. At one point, about 8 minutes into the demo, and about 2 minutes before we were to move on to another station, I happened to glance behind him at a shelf with many little post-its and scraps of paper taped to it. The first one that caught my eye had nothing but the word "iPoo'd" written on it. This store sells iPods, so I guessed that was some little inside play-on-words joke. I smiled and then looked back at him.

After a little bit, I looked to the other side of him, to the scraps of paper hanging behind him on the left. One of them was from a pad of company letterhead paper (not my company, but one of the vendors). A part of the company name had been whited out and changed, so instead of saying "Barcharts," it said "Barfarts." I smiled again.

The doozy was a scrap of paper next to the "Barfarts"; it had a hand-drawn picture of a big, circular lump with little lines floating up from it. Written next to the drawing were the words "Big, Steaming Pile o' Poo." I made a little choking sound, trying not to laugh. I couldn't completely tell if "Tim" was aware of my observation, but I sensed he was, saw the tiniest trace of smile on his face, and I wondered how he felt trying to give this serious demonstration to a bunch of people in suits having just realized he left all his poo-reference evidence lying around. I had to look down and cover my mouth...I was laughing at the drawing but also picturing myself in his place, which was making me laugh even more.

I can be very immature in this area...this area of stifling laughter at the stupidest things in the most inopportune times. Once in Humanities class in high school, this elderly classical piano player from Germany was a guest speaker in our class. A kid raised his hand and asked the man to "compare the pianists in Germany and in the United States." The man looked confused and asked "what?!" in this way that made it obvious he thought the kid was asking him to compare the penises of his countrymen to those of American men. When he realized what had been asked, he answered the question, but I swear I could not stop smirking and choking down laughs for about 10 minutes, and not despite of the fact, but because of the fact that I was sitting front and center. I kept re-living the moment and imagining the face he made in his first second of confusion, and also imagining how funny it would be if the kid really had asked this old man to make such a comparison for our educational benefit. Classic.

Anyway, this moment was just like that. Now, if it were just me standing there, I would have told Tim I liked his drawing (or whosever drawing it was), but I couldn't say anything and couldn't stop smiling, so I had to excuse myself and the group, saying that it was time to move to the next station.

The thing is, we have done this sort of thing in every place I've ever worked. Doesn't everyone? You have to do what you can to amuse yourself and your coworkers, de-stress, pass the time, let all your sillyhearted sillyness flourish, just to keep yourself sane. You write things and draw things and tape things to walls that would never seem worth your time or funny if it weren't for the fact that they represent tiny little acts of rebellion. Tiny things you can do to say, "you can suck my time and my energy and--at least for the next 8 hours--my will to live. But you can not have my SOUL!"

I give a shout-out to Tim and his Pile o' Poo for adding a little sanity to my day.

File Under Poodoos

2006-11-08T18:57:00.000-08:00

I once wrote a post about things that make me happy, a kind of tribute to the practice of gratitude journaling. It occurs to me now that I don't share enough when I'm unhappy. It's as though a part of me is truly ashamed when I'm feeling bad...like I'm not allowed to feel that way.

So to add some yin to my yang, or vice-versa, and without throwing myself a public, virtual pity party, I thought I'd share a few things that make me sad, angry, or frustrated beyond belief...with an obvious invitation for others to do the same.

Victimhood (read "the mood I'm in now")

The smell of mold

Self-righteousness (another thing I am guilty of)

Spilling things (especially ground coffee)

When the volume is too high on anything

Violence

Boredom (there's no excuse)

Reckless drivers

Spiders (I'm sorry spiders...I know it's not your fault...but you seriously freak me out)

Cattiness

A disappointing meal ordered in a restaurant (Boooo!)

Obsessing

Louis Vuitton bags and Burberry scarfs. I just don't get it. How is it possible so many people have agreed on these ugly patterns? How is it possible so many people have agreed it's acceptable, even prestigious, to spend so much money on ugliness?

Self-righteousness again! (Check yourself, girly!)

Being too hot

Being too cold

Arrogant college boys (of which I see plenty at the ole bookstore)

Nagging self doubt

Irresponsible journalism

Interest (the credit kind)

False compliments or false general niceness

Waking up thirsty or having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night but being too tired to get up, finally getting up, and then not being able to fall asleep again

Getting a bad hair cut

Too short pants (there I go again on that one)

Paying full price (what's the female version of "cheap bastard"? You'd think I was raised during The Depression. Or maybe it was growing up shopping for school clothes at Target. P.S. I love you Target!)

Lack of sympathy

Corporate speak

Passive-aggressiveness

Movie theater whisperers

Losing socks to the evil dryer

When things break

Jealosy (guilty there too)

Dust bunnies

Bullies

Clueless male characters and mothering wives (like on "Everybody Loves Raymond")

Real life people (and I think it's usually women) who buy into and perpetuate the above stereotypes

Fashion trends (like ridiculously huge sunglasses)

Mad political correctness

Lies!

Parents who don't discipline

Gossip

Jung said that we dislike characteristics in others that we don't like about ourselves (our "shadow" sides, whether or not we let that side out). If I think about it, this is true for me a great deal of the time. But I also think there are some things I don't like because I just don't like them..because I find them annoying or hurtful. Anyone have thoughts on that?

Grammarians to the Rescue?

2006-11-02T18:11:00.000-08:00

I know there are some excellent grammarians reading this blog, so I thought I'd enlist your help in two questions that always bother me. I suppose I could look these up in a text or online, but where's the fun in that? Plus, this gives you Super Grammartrons a chance to flex your know-how (hyphenated?)

Help!

This one always kills me: How do I express possession for multiple subjects, like for a thing that belongs to two people?

"I'm going to Mumford and Rupert's house." or

"I'm going to Mumford's and Rupert's house."

another example

"It's my and my brother's secret language." or

"It's mine and my brother's secret language."

Both sound awkward and wrong.

The other problem is verb tense when referring to one in a group of people. Like this:

"He's one of those people who like to complain." or

"He's one of those people who likes to complain."

I realize the verb in this sentence is the "is" in "he's," so "like/likes" is not a verb but part of the description of the predicate. But does the description refer to "one" or "people." I'm sure we probably covered this in the Grammar Nazi of all Grammar Nazi's class: Professor Rew's Editing for Writers (and thank goodness she doesn't read this blog), but I am at a loss.

Is there anyone out there who can set me straight? Thanks in advance!

Oh yeah, and P.S...what about that "Grammar Nazi of all Grammar Nazi" thing? If the second "Nazi" were singular, then my punctuation is correct, but in this case, the second "Nazi" is plural (she is one of many), but the class belonged to just the one Nazi. Wow, I never encountered this one before. Should it be "Grammar Nazi of all Grammar Nazis's class"?

Golly.

On Forgetting and Remembering

2006-10-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

On the radio today, I heard a trivia question in which they were asking the name of an area of northern Canada where a near-extinct old Scottish language is spoken. I know nothing about Canadian geography, so the only mental guess I made (which was wrong) was that it was the place where my maternal grandpa was stationed as a firefighter in the air force during WWII. He used to talk about it all the time, and we used to tease him because it seemed about as far away from war action as a soldier could get. What was the name of that place again?

A few minutes passed and I couldn't come up with the name. What was it?! He talked about it all the time! The name even appeared in a short story I wrote a few years ago, and now it was eluding me completely. Out of nowhere, I began to cry.

It amazes me sometimes, how emotions can sneak up on me. See, my grandpa died almost 6 years ago (has it really been that long?). I started to have a feeling of panic while I was driving, trying to come up with the name of this place. My thought was that if I couldn't remember, it meant that I was beginning to forget him. It makes me cry again now thinking about it. The rational part of me countered with the thought that I could always call another family member and ask, but what did this mean about where he lived in my own memory? What else would I start to forget?

There's a scene in Sleepless in Seattle where the young son wakes up from a nightmare and, in tears, tells his dad that he is starting to forget his deceased mother. The dad (Tom Hanks) answers by sharing a detail about his wife and the boy's father. "She could peel an apple in one long strip. The whole entire apple."

I've always appreciated this scene. The father does not try to make the boy feel better. He doesn't tell the boy that he mustn't forget; he just helps him remember something specific, something to bring her memory back into the space for a moment.

I would like to do the same now.

When I was 18, I moved out to Redondo Beach, L.A. to escape from the Ohio winter I was suffering at the time. I moved in with my grandpa, whom I've always known as "Tata." If you say the word to yourself, you have to say it right, with the softer "t" of the Spanish language, more like "tda tda," because if you say the "t" too strong, as in the word "town," you'll picture him wrong in your head, and I can't let that happen.

My grandma ("Nana") had died about 4 years before that, and Tata, though he didn't seem debilitatingly lonely, also didn't seem to mind the company. My grandparents' house had belonged to them for some 30 years, and it was a house I lived in from ages 4-7. I loved that house, so while I had moved a considerable distance away from my parents, it still felt like home.

My Tata wasn't the kind of retired man who travelled the world, or the country, or even the county. He didn't tinker in a workshop or golf. He didn't grow rosebushes or purebred dogs or attend town meetings. Mostly he watched t.v. Mostly he seemed happy like that, at least as happy as I'd always known him.

At the time, I was working nights as a restaurant server, so I would wake up late in the morning like he did, and we would spend a good part of many days, he in his not-too-low wooden kitchen table chair with hot tea or instant coffee on the t.v. tray in front of him, I on the end of the couch, both of us facing the screen through a steady stream that went something like: 11 o'clock news, Jenny Jones, Montel Williams, Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, another Judge Judy, then various cooking shows. Then I'd go to work. All through the day, Tata and I would watch and make jokes, about the guests, about the hosts, and especially about the commercials (always some two-bit (one of his phrases) insurance company, a trade school, a bail bondsman, an add for 1-800-dentist or a doctor who performs "breast augmentations"). This was about as close as I got to my grandpa, emotionally, during the day. During dry hours. I enjoyed every minute.

Once I walked into the kitchen in the afternoon to find him pouring salsa on a recently heated, Healthy Choice t.v. dinner. "Mija," he said, "watch how I incorporate the salsa." A little joke referring to the cooking shows we always watched. I told him I was impressed, and we laughed.

My Tata was a master story teller. None of us minded his exaggerations. They were harmless and they undeniably made the stories better. There was the time he was chased by a roadrunner, and the ghost who overturned a table behind him one spooky night when he was all alone (eating Cheetos--it was all about the details) in his childhood home on a ranch in Brawley, a small town in the desert of Southern California. There was the man who walked miles through the desert, asked for food and water at their little house, and disappeared only a minute after stepping back out into the hot day. And of course, there was the time he and his buddies were unloading an incoming shipment on the air force base when a box fell and some medals of honor tumbled out, which he and his buddies promptly swiped. Where was that base again?

He always used his hands for illustration when he was telling these stories, hands strong, tan, and calloused from a lifelong career building fighter planes at Northrup after the air force. And sometimes, when there was music in a commercial on t.v. he would use those hands to drum along...that was the other thing--Tata spent a lifetime as a jazz drummer, on the weekends, in the evenings, whenever there was time. When he died I found an address book just specially for local musicians he knew and would sometimes play with. The entries would read like Salvador "Chava" Rodriguez, tenor sax, and then a phone number.

I would come home from work late at night to find Tata still awake and in front of the t.v. By this hour, he'd be watching the fights or Jay Leno or an old black and white movie on Telemundo. The coffee or tea would be replaced by a can of Budweiser in a foamy keep-cool holder. Sometimes he would just say hi and ask how my night was. Sometimes he would say, "Mija, I'm glad you're here," and he would tell me he was proud of me. That he rarely said such things when he was sober mattered little to me. I knew he meant it.

On the day of his funeral a few years later, 2 years after I'd come to settle in Northern California, the house in Redondo was full--of all things--of laughter. There was family. There were lifelong friends. There were my parents and aunt and uncles, and all of their lifelong friends. My aunts' and uncles' spouses parents were all there, and many of these people came from out-of-town or out-of-state. That's the way both my grandpa and grandma were. Their love had spread far and wide. Most of the people my mom's age or younger had at one time lived in my grandparents' home; it had always been a welcome refuge and a place of warmth.

I sat in the small and packed house that day listening to stories from all these people who had been touched by my Tata...not planned, walk-up-to-a-microphone stories, just people sitting around sharing what they remembered. Just joyful reminiscences of a man who was hard to forget.

The name of the base in northern Canada was Goose Bay, Labrador. I remember now. I suppose that even if I never had, I would be assured knowing there will always be so much about him to remember.

Thank you for reading while I brought his memory into this space for a while.

My Secret Love for Mustangs Football Paraphernalia

2006-10-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

The other morning I was at work when a man drove up our driveway in a pickup truck, parked, and wandered into the bookstore. He asked very politely if I could help him find the place he was looking for and pulled a raggedy piece of scratch paper out of his t-shirt pocket. Glancing it over, I recognized the name of the nuns' residence, which is right across the way from the bookstore (it's a Catholic university).

I pointed to the nunnery (as I like to call it), and he then asked whether I knew if they'd been doing any construction over there recently. He was apparently a construction work there to do the finishing touches. I told him yes, that people had been redoing their patio all week, and walked him outside to show him exactly where to go.

We were done with this little conversation and the man was about to walk away when he said this: "You like that hat, huh?"

I was baffled. My first way of making sense of this in my mind was this thought: 1) 'I'm not wearing a hat; he can't be talking about my hat,' and 2) this incredibly strange follow-up: 'Is he making fun of my hair? Is he saying my hair looks like a hat?'

I said, "Excuse me?"

And he said, "You like that hat huh? You're looking at my hat." He pulled the brim of his hat down to show me. This man was taller than me, and the brim of his hat was up kind of high, so until he did that, I couldn't even see anything about his hat other than the color.

It would have been great if his hat had somehow been so awesome, I could have just said, "yeah, that's a great hat!" But it just said, Mustangs Football on it, some sports hat. What could I say? I don't have it in me to give a false, after-the-fact compliment.

I just said, "oh, no I wasn't actually," smiling and trying to say it in the nicest possible way.

"Oh, okay," he said, "okay then, thanks."

He didn't seem hurt or anything, but I felt kind of bad. He was the nicest man, and he had seemed so happy at first when he thought I was admiring his hat. But then I don't know why he thought I was looking at anyway. I was looking at his eyes while we were talking (?)

Anyway, this whole interaction struck me as funny and reminded me of a line I loved from the first short story in the book Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger. I don't remember the title of the story, but the main character is in the elevator, and the woman next to him is staring at his feet. He makes some comment to acknowledge this fact, and she denies having been staring at his feet. In the end, he says something to the effect of, "Look lady, I don't mind if you're staring at my feet, but you don't have to be a god damned sneak about it."

I wonder if the man thought I was trying to be all sneaky about my obsession with his hat. I had the feeling he wanted to tell me the story behind it. Maybe I should have asked.

How is it Possible that George W. Bush is Still Using the Non-Word "nucular" in Public Addresses?!

2006-10-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

How?!

The Blah in Blogging

2006-09-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, Sajid and I were sitting in the room adjacent to the living room (some might call it a dining room, but I don't because dining rooms are stuffy. I prefer to think of it as the eating nook.), when we heard a woman on the T.V. say this:

"Do you think Maddox never smiles for the camera because he's sick of the Paparazzi or because he was forced to get a Mohawk??!!"

Sajid: Who is Maddox?
Me: Angelina Jolie's adopted son.
Sajid: Oh, the Japanese kid?
Me: I think he's from Cambodia.

Pause

Me again: I don't know what recess of my brain I pulled that information from.

But I do. I do know. The woman who made the comment was in a commercial on the channel serving as the playground of my most shameful guilty pleasure. The guilty pleasure is soaking in 1/2 hours' worth of inane chatter set to images of famous people; the playground is the E! Network.

There. I said it.

I think of it this way. I don't watch much T.V. When I do, I might as well do it right. I mean, why pretend there are shows that are "good for you" or "intelligent?" Ok, the occasional show on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, or PBS might be good for you or intelligent. But I mean, I listen to informative talk radio, I read books. Why not let the T.V. be the place to really just let my mind turn to mushy goo for a while?

I don't really feel that way about it. I truly do feel guilty every time I watch anything on E! The lamest part about it is that I don't even know who half the stars are or what they're famous for. I have seen many many images of Eva Longoria and heard a fair bit of commentary on her, and I have no idea what she does. Actress? Model? Singer?

Here's the loop:

Do you see me in it anywhere?

And yet, and yet. I know who Maddox is and where he's from. I stop short at caring, but I do know. What to make of this?

I think what I like most about pictures of stars is seeing what they're wearing. There's a dress shop in the Pruneyard shopping center that often has beautiful gowns in the window. I've walked by that window so many times and thought, 'now if I only had an upcoming red carpet event to attend.' But alas, even if I had an event, the carpet would likely be closer to the shag variety. Famous people get to dress up all the time. The whole 9, all the time! They probably get sick of it, but still.

As nice to look at as the gowns are, what I really marvel at is the pants that famous women wear. So many of the woman are of amazon height like me, but miraculously, their pants are always, always long enough; they can even wear heels and their pants are still long enough.

I told Sajid that if I were rich, I wouldn't buy a big house or a crazy car or bling. No, my big indulgence would be a personal tailor who crafted special pants just for me. They would be long long long, big enough in the hips and tight enough in the waist. And they wouldn't have the mega long crotch that most "tall" length pants do. Hey! I said I was tall, not long-crotched. What is that about?!

While I'm on the subject, I did find a decent pair of jeans after an intense search that lasted weeks. Recently, my friend Nicole sent me the link to a website her honey Raul had worked on. Zafu is a site solely devoted to helping women find the right pair of jeans. I tried it out, plugged in all my stats, and like magic, the website brought up about 20 pairs of jeans in all prices ranges. The pair I had found on my own after the exhaustive search was among them. Gals, save your precious crude oil derivative and check it out!

Well, we're a long way from where this started (refugee children from Cambodia, to refresh your memory), but that's what put the blah in blogging right?

Yeah. What he said.

Somebody Find This Dog!

2006-09-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

This small sign (the size of a piece of copy paper) has been taped to a post on my street since, well, 8/11 (some time in the pm).

It makes me laugh every time I pass it. The obvious questions arise. What kind of dog? Why no picture to help us identify the dog?

The desperation in the exclamation marks!!

And the sad face. The sad face! Aww. Is it meant to depict the owner or the dog? Both?

It makes me want to find the dog just so I can make that sad face go away.

Has anyone seen a lost dog with a look on its face like it's been missing since the evening of August 11th?

What the World Needs Now is...

2006-09-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

It looks like this

...but also like this

It moves like this

...and like this

But whatever it looks like or moves like or sounds like, it feels like this

Yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

It's the San Francisco Love Fest and before I go on I should mention that it happened last weekend. But I wanted to share the love here so any future would-be revelers have the 4-1-1. The Love Fest begins with a parade of floats, and each float hosts a different DJ (the DJs all play different styles of trance music). The parade ends at City Hall, and all the streets nearby are then closed to traffic. The floats park and then people just dance until evening, then spill into nearby clubs for after parties.

According the website, these are the values and intentions of the event:

...a free parade that celebrates music, love, diversity, tolerance, dance, and community is something we believe in strongly, and believe America needs now more than ever. Dance music has always had a special ability to bring people together in the shared beauty of a universal vibe. Our community by and large remains 'underground' in U.S. pop culture due to very little support from radio and MTV, etc. We know that in a culture awash in conflict, materialism, superficial concerns, and greed, an event of this kind can lift the spirits and the hopes of those who to surrender to its power. The power of dance. The power of music. The power of community. We're taking it to the streets letting the vibe and the cooperation and respect of the people taking part in it be a message of hope in dark times. We intend to make the event a platform for dance music to reach more ears in America and beyond, to carry a message of love and hope, to be a vehicle for helping organizations doing good in the world, and for dancing our asses off surrounded by friendly freaks.

The Love Fest definitely attracts its share of friendly freaks, friendly being the operative word. I've really never been in a place where people seemed so incredibly kind and accepting and truly just interested in having fun. There was none of the super-sexed vibe found at many other such gatherings or at any club. In the trance music realm, it really seems like boys and girls are equal creatures, just out for music, out for movement, out for fun. We had a great time.

Only in San Francisco can something like this happen on the steps of City Hall. Beautiful.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai!

2006-09-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

When was the last time you watched a movie that had an intermission (chai and samosas available for snacking in the lobby)? How about one during which, without warning and having no apparent connection to plausibility, all actors on screen broke into song and dance?

If the answer is "never" or "not recently," you haven't been spending enough time in places like the NAZ8 Cinema.

Sajid and I often rent Bollywood movies at home, and many times they are so ludicrous we end up turning them off or falling asleep. Sometimes a really good one comes along, and during crucial moments I make myself imagine that everybody in real life sings and dances spontaneously, in public, in a highly choreographed manner, thereby allowing my mind to temporarily suspend disbelief. I'm okay with musicals as a genre, but when every drama, comedy, or action movie doubles as musical, it strikes me as a little strange. Anyway, during the better movies, I get over that.

Last night was the first time we went to see a Bollywood movie in the theater. What got us there was this movie
which is the second in a series ("Lage Raho Munna Bhai" means, roughly, "Carry On, Childlike Gangsta Bro"), the first of which I haven't seen but have heard many good things about. If the title and movie poster make it seem like a super-cheese, antic-filled goofball comedy, the marketing firm responsible for it has done its job well. However, to my surprise, this movie had a lot more to it.

The whole premise of the plot is that the guy in the red blazer decides to learn about Mahatma Gandhi in order to impress the girl, whose grandfather (and hence, her, as the dutiful granddaughter) holds Gandhi in high esteem and hosts a sort of club that honors the late leader. Red blazer (whose name is "Munna Bhai") is a con artist and thug of sorts, and lies his way close to the girl. Man, if I had a nickel for everytime that old pretent-you-know-about-Gandhi-to-get-the-girl plotline was used...

What happens is that, in studying to learn more about Gandhi (referred to affectionately as "Bapu," meaning Granddad, by his admirers), Munna Bhai begins to hallucinate conversations with Bapu and starts living his life in accordance with Gandhian values and practices. I know, I know, it still sounds ultra cheesy. And yes, it was. But it was funny, and at times very moving. I, no sucker for romantic comedies, believe me, believe me (!) and usually critical of movies to the point of cruelty, found myself crying a few times as I watched how the introduction of Bapu's ideals changed the lives of the characters. Ultimately, the movie had a strong effect on me. It was so fun and positive and sweet that I left the theater happier than I've ever left a movie since I don't know when.

And the thing is, Gandhi's preachings of peace, goodwill, patience, honesty, humility, empathy...they are all timeless and relevant. I left the theater re-thinking the post I wrote yesterday about my neighbors. I wondered what a peace-loving, patient, honest, humble, empathetic person would do in a similar situation. Oh my, do I feel a "What would Gandhi do?" bumper sticker coming on? No. But I can't say I didn't ask myself the question.

I think I've been short on kindness lately. I think I've let my cynical, critical, yucky poopoo side out to play way too much, even if only in my thoughts, and it leaves me feeling, well, yucky poopoo. I needed last night's kick in the ass, and I'm grateful.

I'm keeping this picture on my desktop for inspiration.

Who ARE the People in Your Neighborhood?

2006-09-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

The first thing our neighbor Dennis ever said to us was, "hey, you wanna put a lock on that garage door?" And that was a fitting welcome to the neighborhood, given our experience since.

We met our neighbors "Betty" and "Josephine" (real names unknown--firstly because they never introduced themselves; I haven't seen "Betty" since and "Josephine" and her family moved away after we'd been living next door for about 3 months) when they came to our front door bearing a list of grievances.

The way they came to the door is almost as strange as the complaints they brought with them. I had just left the house and Sajid was in the bathroom. They banged on the door and he asked if they could hold on a minute because he was in the bathroom. They insisted, "it'll only take a minute." Sajid came to the door and these two elderly women launched into a tirade about the laundry I'd left hanging to dry on our front porch.

Sajid apologized, though he was then as confused and I still am about what is so offensive about hanging laundry (no underwear, no bras, just clothes). They also complained that we come home late at night and that Sajid parked his car in the driveway (of all places). Okay. We entertained their complaints for a while. No laundry hanging to dry, tiptoeing in at night, and no parking in the driveway until we realized everybody else was. Then we figured it was okay.

The second time "Josephine" came to our front door, she asked if we knew anything about her teenaged daughter's missing (read stolen) bicycle, which we did not, to the suspiscious disappointment of Josie.

We first met Rebecca when she came to our front door with a similar matter. Did we know anything, by chance, about her missing (stolen) laundry basket, which she'd left in the laundry room? No, again.

Doesn't anybody shake hands and introduce themselves anymore? Or is the default to meet when you have some bone to pick?

One afternoon, we were having a barbeque with some friends at the park across the street. Sajid found a plastic table in a storage maintenance area by the apartments and picked it up to use for our barbeque. He was halfway across the street when he heard Dennis's voice from the darkness beyond his closed screen door. "Amigo," the voice said, "that's my table."

So Sajid took that to mean, "That's my table and you can't use it," and he put it back. I'm wondering if Dennis thinks my husband is Mexican or Spanish-speaking of some other country origin, or if he just addresses everybody as "amigo," even when the rest of what he has to say is not the least bit friendly.

We pretty much resigned ourselves to the idea that we would not be friends with the neighbors. Except for Greg. Greg lived across the way, and he was very friendly. He used to volunteer to fix things and was generally helpful to everybody. He was a nice exception. We thought he got along with everyone until the night he knocked on our door as we were about to go to dinner. He told Sajid he was planning to kick Dennis's ass (or something like that, I don't know it was very strange). He handed Sajid a pair of plastic handcuffs and a sock, all the while saying something about how there would never be any marks (?). I don't know what all was going on between them, but Greg kept talking about how Dennis was drunk and about to drive and how it was his (our?) responsibility to stop him. We went to dinner while Greg took off after Dennis, plastic handcuffs and sock in hand. We have no idea what happened after that.

One day, after Josephine and family moved out, her husband, another nice but very quiet exception to the rudeness we'd encountered thus far, came back to the house to do a final clearing out. He had a conversation with Sajid that afternoon and ended up telling him a story about when he was growing up. He said an African-American family moved into the neighborhood when he was about 10-years-old, and that he always felt bad about the way people (all white until then) treated that family. Sajid took this as a kind of apology on behalf of his wife, and figured it might not have exactly been his imagination that the neighborhood was a little chilly.

Why do I bring all this stuff up now, here? I'd been okay with the not-so-friendly neighborhood, but it's on my mind again. A new couple moved in last month, young (younger than us, I believe), and friendly. We both met both of them on separate occasions, and they seemed pleasant enough. But last week I said "hi" to the girl, and she totally ignored me. The same day I was cleaning out the garage, and the guy took one step out of the house, saw me there, and went back inside. I don't get it. What happened? I haven't even seen these people enough to have the chance to offend them, and neither has Sajid.

Believe me, we are nice people. We are even friends with Rebecca now, now that she no longer thinks we stole her laundry basket. I don't know what the deal is with the rest of the neighborhood. I'll say that it's very patriotic, very much of the older demographic, and somewhat conservative (the first question "Betty" asked Greg when he moved in was (not if, but) where he went to church). Could it be that we just don't fit the profile when it comes to welcome neighbors? I don't know.

Part of me thinks that neighborliness just isn't what it used to be. When I was young, we lived with my grandparents. We knew the Guataramas next door, one-legged Bruce across the street, Pat from two doors down, a real Betty across the street from her, the Banuelos' a whole block away. We knew everyone in the neighborhood, and all their kids, too. The families had been there for generations.

Are there places in San Jose where this is the norm? I would like to find one and live there. There is this idea I have in my head that somewhere, neighbors still come over to borrow a cup of sugar, still have block parties, still acknowledge each other's existence.

Who are the people in your neighborhood? For your sake, I hope they are nicer than those in mine :(

Next Man, Please (Please!)

2006-09-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

This space left intentionally blank.

I'll explain why one day.

The Not-Worst Thing That Could Happen

2006-07-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this from a terminal at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. It’s 8:44pm and I was supposed to have been in the air for 1 hour and 45 minutes by now. Upon checking in, I learned that the flight had been delayed by ½ hour. When boarding time came at 6:00, I learned that the flight had then been delayed further, with an ETD at 9:00pm.

For the past few hours, I and a bunch of other hapless travelers have been seated in the terminal, hanging on the occasional updates from the less-than-sympathetic airline personnel. How could they care? They see this stuff everyday.

The reason for the delay is that my flight does not have any captain or other pilot-type crew. We’ve got a plane; we’ve got flight attendants; but we’ve no drivers.

So.

A couple of minutes ago, the airline personnel woman came on the speaker and announced that they’d found a flight crew for us. They’re coming in on a flight from Texas that is scheduled to land at 11:00pm. So our revised departure time is 11:30.

You should have heard the angry roar/groan that this news elicited from my fellow travelers. I looked to my right to see a young woman telling this news to somebody on the phone with the look of somebody who’d just smelled the most horrible fart of her life. Quite miserable and upset are many of these people.

As I took in the collective groan, I couldn’t help but think of the news that’s been invading the television and newspaper for the past couple of weeks—the news of hundreds of deaths, injuries, and uprootings in the Middle East. Going back further, the news of thousands of deaths, horrible bloody, violent deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few years. Oh, we could go back further and further until the beginning of time. There are plenty of horrible, bloody, violent deaths to ponder. Plenty of people have been unbelievably inconvenienced. Plenty of plans have been permanently delayed, altered beyond recognition.

I’m not saying it’s not annoying to sit around an airport for a few extra hours. Hey, we still have an airport! It just occurred to me.

I’m just saying a little perspective is good for the soul.

Feeling Safer by the Day

2006-07-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I flew down to Los Angeles for the wedding of my dear friends Kelsi and Jeff. The wedding took place at Aunt Suzie's House. Really, that's what it said on the invitation, which was so cute and fitting for the kind of intimate, backyard engagement it turned out to be. Kelsi's talented, musical family served as the reception entertainment. Jeff's sister Jeannine was the photographer. Kelsi's mother's best friend Claudia (a kind of second mother to her) was the officiant. It was lovely.

That was how I felt after the wedding...just full of all the lovely of it. Before the wedding was a little stressful, only in the way that any kind of travel can be when there's a schedule to be kept. Sajid and I had some trouble finalizing our plans for making it down to L.A., partly having to do with the fact that I was to be there for a 5:00 rehearsal on Friday evening, and he couldn't leave until Friday night. So I ended up booking a flight at the last minute, and he drove.

I always stress out a little when it comes to the airport. I hate to rush, and I really hate to bring luggage onboard, which I did this time because I only had one small suitcase. It turned out the plane was too small to handle even this carry on, its overhead compartments measuring roughly the size of a toaster oven, and I ended up having to check the small suitcase at the end of the staircase (yes, incredibly we still use staircases up to the planes in San Jose) anyway.

Without the luggage I might have avoided having to endure the bonus screening I was treated to when I passed through security. I don't know how the security people decide who makes the first cut and who doesn't. Maybe it truly is just random. But whatever they use to determine who gets the extra dose of security screening, I must have had it written all over me that day. The second I passed through the little imaginary doorway (without beeping, I may add), and without even glancing once at my face, the man holding my boarding pass snapped his fingers and said, "female screener needed."

Ambling along came not one, but two(!) female security screeners, who told me to follow them to a huge x-ray machine at the end of the screening area. They had a somewhat lengthy discussion about whether or not they should offer me a chair, they giggled incessantly at some kind of secret funny thing, and they got in each others' way a lot as they rifled through my luggage. At some point I clued in to the fact that one of the young women was training the other, though I honestly would have had a difficult time telling who knew better what she was doing if I'd been asked at any point before the clue in.

With my luggage determined non-threatening (whew), it was time for my pat down! The trainer turned to the trainee and said, "Okay, search her now." I might point out here that I was wearing a long straight skirt with no pockets and a simple summer blouse, neither of which could have possibly been disguising something dangerous. But they had their jobs to do, I understand.

With this new set of instructions, the trainee looked at the trainer with a face that seemed to say she wasn't sure how to go about this next step. The trainer nodded at the trainee reassuringly, and the trainee looked me up and down, trying to decide where/how to start. She ended up squatting down in front of me, and the trainer told her to have me take one half step forward on one leg. I did so, and then the trainee began patting me down.

With this, the trainer leaned down next to the trainee's ear and--in a mocking accusatory tone-- said, "slut."

I guess it was meant to be a whisper. The two ladies shared another giggle, and they dismissed me shortly thereafter. I walked toward the gate thankful for the new stringent security measures and the sober, security-minded folks we've hired to enforce them at our airports.

Not Applying to the CIA

2006-06-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today I got a phone call at work from some company that sells graduation caps and gowns. This call was immediately filed under the telemarketer category in my mind because the bookstore I manage has always and I suspect will always buy graduation caps and gowns from the Microsoft of graduation matters we all know as Jostens.

When the telemarketer asked me if the person responsible for making cap and gown buying decisions was available, I told her "no." This was not a lie. I'm not responsible for making that decision. However, when the woman on the line asked me the name of whoever makes that decision, I lied. I am unbelievably bad at thinking on my feet when it comes to false information. See, the reason I lied was that I didn't want to have to dig up the contact info of whoever makes that decision because I have no idea who it is. So, in a moment of brilliance, I told her that the name of the person who makes that decision is "Kisa."

I can't stop laughing as I'm writing this. Who, when attempting to avoid taking responsibility for something, falsely gives her own name as the responsible party? See, my thinking was that if I gave the name of any other employee, the telemarketer would call back asking for that person. And why not just tell her the truth: that nobody on site makes that decision? It would even have been the easiest thing to say.

Then the lady asked when "Kisa" might be available, and I told her that "Kisa" would be in the following afternoon. What kind of strategy is this? So when she calls back tomorrow I'm gonna pretend to be "Kisa"?

And the thing was, I noticed this kind of hesitation in the woman's voice, this kind of, "uh, okaaaay." I was thinking, 'how can she tell I'm lying? I can tell she can tell. But how does she know?!"

It was then that I remembered the very first part of the conversation, the part where I answered the phone and identified myself by name. The part before I knew I'd be lying to this woman in the very near future.

So a transcript of our little chat would look about like this:

Me: Thank you for calling NDNU bookstore. This is Kisa. How can I help you?
Her: I'm so-and-so from so-and-so cap and gown company. Is the person who makes the cap and gown buying decision available?
Me: Uh, no. She's not in right now.
Her: Oh. Could you tell me who that person might be?
slight pause
Me: Yeah. Her name's Kisa.
slight pause
Her: Okay, and uh, when will she be in?
Me: She'll be in tomorrow afternoon.

About 2o things went through my mind in the time it took for this conversation to transpire. I thought of when I'd be able to talk to her again, what would happen if I gave her a totally fake name, who really would make that decision, etc.. And in all that thinking and scheming, that's what I came up with...that I would be in tomorrow afternoon.

So it looks like I'll be talking to her again. Wonder if she'd give me up for a lunatic if I answered the phone without identifying myself, then when she asked for Kisa, I said, "Sure, could I put you on hold for a second?" then covered the mouthpiece with my hand, coughed, and then answered in an obviously and badly altered fake voice: "Uh, this is Kisa."

I think I'll try that.

This incident called to mind another from a few years back that involved my feeble attempts to fake someone out on the phone. Just before I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I was dirt poor and behind on my Discover card payment. I came home one afternoon to find a carefully written message from my roommate Lisa. It gave the name and number of somebody from Discover and said they'd requested I return the call. In all my then-financially irresponsible evasiveness, I did not return the call.

I was home alone the following afternoon when the same woman from Discover called back. "May I please speak with Kisa?" she asked.

"Um, she's not here right now. Can I take a message?"

"Sure, to whom am I speaking?"

Trying to stick close to what could be a true story, I said this: "Uh, this is her roommate, Lisa."

Amazing little record keepers there at Discover. She replied with, "Oh, I believe I left a message with you yesterday."

And this is where it gets really dumb. In that moment, I thought of the dilligence with which Lisa had taken that message and I felt guilty for letting this woman think that Lisa had neglected to perform her roommate secretarial duties. Lisa is one of the most responsible women I've ever known. I couldn't misrepresent her this way!

So my solution was this line: "Oh, no, you must have talked to my girlfriend. Her name is also Lisa."

Which met with this now-common response: "Uh, okaaay."

We ended it there. And the funny part is, the story was not as far-fetched as it seems. I really did have a roommate named Lisa, and Lisa's girlfriend at the time was also named Lisa (rare but sometimes occuring homosexual relationship phenomenon).

I hung up the phone and put these imagined words in the mind of the Discover lady: 'Man, this girl is so lame, she can only think of one other name in the whole world to lie with, and it's a name that rhymes with her own name?!'

And today proved that the reality is even worse than that. I can't even think of a rhyming one anymore. Cheesh.

I Want One of Those

2006-06-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

Saw this great t-shirt worn by a man marching in this year's Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco. It read:

I Like Booty. Who Doesn't?

Don't Worry...I'm Not Really Smart

2006-06-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

I once laughed at the truth I found in a book of definitions and usages of American slang words. Under usages for the word "like," there was a description of the "like" filler insertion that works to convince the audience that the speaker isn't really intelligent or doesn't really read, even if it might appear that way based on the content of that speaker's words. Example:

"I think that's called, like, quantum physics, or something."

I've heard this sort of thing a lot. There are other words one can use to take whatever kind of edge off the words that might otherwise be there if the naked statement just hung in the air without its (for lack of a better description) edge taker-offers.

For example, I once heard a tough-looking guy on a bus say this to another tough-looking guy: "Nah, I try to be in town at Christmas, so I can watch my kids open presents and shit."

The thought of sharing the desire to watch his children open presents was simply too touchy-feely for such a tough guy. "And shit" proves that he's aware of this, definitely aware that tough guy number two is aware of it, and he finds a way to express something close to what he means while maintaining his position in the tough guy circle. It's a useful defense, a kind of survival instinct at work.

I experienced something like this when I went to get a haircut yesterday. My hairstylist was a young woman I'll call Amy, who was sweet, friendly, tan, beautiful, and somehow able to work on her feet all day in wedged espadrilles that matched her gorgeous summer dress. I think it would be safe to say that both man #1 and man #2 from one of my recent posts would have put Amy into the hottie category.

I had pretty much just arrived and she was about to get started on the wonderful aromatherapy scalp-massage shampoos they do at this particular hair salon. We started talking about t.v., and she was telling me how she doesn't watch it. Then she was about to tell me about a study she'd read on excessive t.v. watching and internet surfing and their connection to cognitive (in)abilities. Before she told me about this, she said, "I don't remember where I read this...I think it was some science magazine...I don't even know why I picked it up."

This wasn't said in the tone of somebody who just forgot where she read something. It was an apology of sorts. It also came across as an assurance to me that she wasn't really into this sort of thing, this reading thing, just in case I didn't approve of that kind of activity.

And I'm not making light of what she said. I can understand exactly where the inclination comes from. In fact, incredibly, a lot of people don't really approve of the whole reading thing, and I wondered how often Amy ends up dumbing herself down in order to keep inline with customers' expectations of her and her interests. Hair, right? That's what she's into.

I ended up having an interesting conversation with her, and I wondered what we'd have ended up talking about if I had responded to her science study with a shrug or a blank stare.

It's weird. You know most people do this to an extent. It's not always a matter of not wanting to appear smart or nerdy. Mostly it's just two people wanting to find out what common ground exists among them, then deciding to talk about that, because it's more fun to talk about things they can share than for one to just talk at the other. At least it is for most of us. There are plenty of exceptions that popped up in my mind as I was writing that.

I like the common ground; I usually seek it out, too. What I don't like the idea of is any person feeling the need to apologize for having feelings to share or for being intelligent.

That's just, like, so sad.

People Watching on Paper

2006-06-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

For the rest of the voyeurs out there, check out Found Magazine online. It's a collection of items (mostly pictures and notes) found by people on streets, in old couch cushions, just wherever. The guy who started it says he just appreciates anything that gives a peek into other people's lives. Some of the stuff on here is funny, some just random, some really sad. And I'm always curious about the story behind the story.

My favorite contribution so far: A post-it note that reads, simply "OUCH! Barb, I thought this was a cookie!"

Enjoy.

A Fly on the Wall

2006-06-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, following two weeks of Strep Throat passed between us, Sajid and I decided to go out and enjoy our renewed health. Our place of choice was Molly Magee's in Mountain View, a supposed pub that has no pub-like qualities--it's a bit loud and clubby for that, but they have a nice patio out back, so we like to go there.

As a sidenote, I want to mention that I love going out for drinks with my husband. It's a great feeling to be able to sit and have a beer with him and people-watch as various men and women try to hook up with one another, knowing all the while that we will go home in the same car, wake up in the same bed, and spend the rest of the days together. I never liked bars all that much before, but the feeling of going with him is totally different.

Anyway, sometimes Molly Magee's is filled with mellow people having mellow times, and sometimes Meat Market is the only accurate description for it. On those meaty nights, I find myself caught in awkward, middle school dance mode during brief moments when I'm alone--usually if Sajid is at the bar getting our drinks. I learned quickly that it is not a great idea to make eye contact, because that can be followed by instant, unwanted actual contact with a likely drunk man who then makes his own awkward middle school escape when I mention that I'm waiting for my husband to return. I guess it's somewhat rare--a husband and wife out at a bar together on a Friday night...well, this bar anyway. So during those moments, I take remarkable interest in things like lighting fixtures, the legs of bar stools, and the lone T.V. playing some sporting event that I can neither hear nor see very well.

Last Friday, I had a fascinatingly strange experience. When we arrived there and Sajid went to get drinks, I went to sit down and wait for him to join me. As I passed by a group of three men, I noticed they noticed me, and then I heard this from one of them: "She's cute," followed by this response from an incredulous other, "You think so?!"

Whoah. I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to hear that. And I'm definitely sure I wasn't supposed to hear what followed. I guess these men were just drunk enough, or the place just loud enough, that they didn't realize I could hear everything they were saying. And I just looked away as I could see them all looking at me out of the corner of my eye.

What followed was a full-on debate attempting to answer the question brought forth by the first man: the question of my attractiveness (or not). I listened with interest as he made a case for me. And I listened with more interest to the case made against me. 'Yeah, I guess that's true,' I thought in answer to the first. 'Yeah, that's true too,' I thought, in answer to the second.

The first guy made a good argument on my behalf (thank you anonymous drunken man), and their willingness to continue this debate was surprising to me. Ultimately, though, I lost to this statement from guy #2: "Well, I guess my standards are higher what with all these gorgeous hotties around."

Huh.

As strange as that was to take in, this was a dream come true. How many times did I wish I could be an invisible witness to whatever Jeremy Denny had to say about me when I was in the midst of my 5th grade crush on him?! (I came to realize eventually that he had likely never said anything about me; that came painfully clear when we took a field trip to the local roller rink and he skated with Crystal Moline during the couples skate--they were a blonde-haired, blue-eyed match made in heaven.)

But this was really happening...I was, finally and absolutely, a fly on the wall. Two things made this experience less gratifying than I imagined it would be. The first is that I didn't know these men and knew they didn't know me beyond a quick visual judgement made in a bar. And when I did finally sneak a peek at them, I had the somewhat cruel, yes defensive, but honest thought that these men didn't strike me as the type that had, just, you know, the whole world of women available to them for their choosing. It brought to mind a line from the movie "Say Anything":

John Cusack (as Lloyd Dobbler): "So if you guys know so much about women, what are you doing at like the Gas-n-Sip at 3 o'clock in the morning with no women anywhere in sight?"

Something like that.

But the second and more important reason the invisible eavesdropping experiment was a bust is that how could I care what these men had to say about me when I was just about to be joined at that table by the most wonderful man I have ever known?

It felt good when Sajid got there, when I told him what was going on and we laughed at the goofiness of the situation. When I looked him in the eyes and felt my love for him, his love for me. It felt like absolute redemption. Like the permanent erasure of all those awkward middle school moments, the awkward high school ones that followed, and all those between high school and that moment, there at that bar, being sized-up by three unknown men whose opinions I did not and would never care about.

When the men became aware of my company, they turned their attention elsewhere, seeking another woman to discuss and dissect, make cases for and against. And I put my hand in Sajid's, took a sip from my beer, and was thankful for all the meat markets in which I'll never be consumer nor goods.

What it's Like to be 28

2006-05-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

It's great. It's been, by far, the best year of my life, and I woke today with the knowledge that I'm surrounded by a wonderful husband, family, and friends who love and support me. What more could I long for in this life?

Liberated!

2006-04-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

It was time.

:)

Happy Maker...DO try this at home.

2005-09-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

I once heard of keeping a gratitude journal in order to help focus on the positive things in life..the things for which one gives thanks. I write gratitude journal entries once in a while, and I thought it would be fun to write one here. It's amazing how wonderful the exercise makes me feel, and I'm sure I'll be adding onto it in the future. Please feel free to add your own under comments. Cuz I just love hearing of other people's warm fuzzies...

Things I dig...

When the ticket validator works on the first try at the Caltrain station.

CD mixes my brother makes me.

Fresh naan bread from my honey's restaurant.

The sound of people laughing.

Jon Carroll's collumn in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Realistic dialogue in movies and books.

My friend Kelsi's "K is for Kelsi" ala Cookie Monster voice mail message.

Snail Mail correspondence.

Adventurous old people.

Orange sunset light reflected off the leaves of trees.

Driving into L.A. at night.

People who say "hi" when they pass.

A well-articulated argument.

Having money in my account after all my bills are paid.

Being tickled.

The feel of October.

When newscasters lose their "composure" on air and act human.

Nicknames.

Scalding hot bath water.

Dilbert.

Suprise phone calls from my old friend Renee.

Beer at a ballpark.

Slippers.

People who refrain from using tired retorts like, "what've you been smoking?" when they hear something that sounds weird to them.

Shameless exaggeration.

The ends of semesters.

The beginnings of semesters.

A strong cup of black coffee.

Good questions.

When my parents tell me they're proud of me.

Macaroni and Cheese.

Feeling that something I said was completely understood.

A clean wipe the first time.

People who slap your knee 0r point at you when you are sharing a laugh with them.

Flower shops.

Intentionally cheesy commercials.

The way my boyfriend says "again" with his accent (uh-GAYN).

Riding my bike.

People who tell stories.

Having enough time.

Before and After photos.

Picking people up at the airport.

Folding clean laundry.

Knowing glances that I'm in on.

When somebody likes a movie I show them because it's one of my favorites.

Good Huggers.

Pants that are long enough.

When there's a room full of people but no single conversation can be heard above the others.

Gracefulness.

The Onion.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream.

When all my nails are the same length.

Teenagers with respectful attitudes.

Waking up and not feeling tired.

Text messages.

People who don't gossip.

Stories of survival.

Beautiful dresses.

Random bits of information.

Making out.

Legislation that promotes equality and tolerance.

People who accept compliments.

Friendly neighbors.

French fries dipped in a mixture of ketchup and ranch dressing.

Harmless shenanigans.

Northern California weather.

NPR.

Setting the Record Straight: The Real Story About Me and Kittens

2005-07-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

I recently entered a graduate program in Professional Psychology with the goal of getting my therapy license (roughly four years and one million dollars from now…graduate school is expensive, cheesh!).

The program is infinitely fascinating, the classes small and personal, and the professors’ anecdotes from their respective therapy practices instructive, insightful, and—at times—very entertaining. I’m enjoying it so far, not only because I’m on my way to what I think will be an interesting and rewarding career (oh my god, I sound like those ads that come on during Judge Judy commercial breaks: you TOO can embark on an exciting career in insurance claims estimating!), but because it’s so different from my undergrad experience. The students are dedicated and mature, and the reading is always, always significant (there will be no selling back of books at the ends of quarters in this program).

Some things, however, are humdrummingly familiar. Take, for example, the obligatory introductions professors make students offer up at the outset of class. What’s your name? Tell us a little bit about your background. What brought you here, now? What’s something interesting about you? That last one is always the most difficult.

Some professors try to shake this whole song and dance up a little by suggesting we do it “a little differently this time.” This time, see, we’re going to interview the person sitting next to us, then share what we learned with the class. This is even worse…now it’s up to somebody else to decide what is interesting about us!

Well, the first day of my Clinical Skills Training A: Self and Group class, we did the interviewing thing. What is different about this class is that it pretty much follows the format of a group therapy session—we are going through the process of group therapy in the anticipation that we, ourselves, will be leading such sessions one day. So after we went around and introduced ourselves, we went around again and talked about what the process was like for us, how it felt to have another person introduce us.

The experience was pretty good, and I shared that with the class. I told them that these exercises always make me nervous because sometimes the information gets distorted, and I feel myself being represented in a way that’s somewhat inaccurate. I’m always afraid the other person will somehow turn me into a monster between the interview and the retelling.

The woman who interviewed me in this class was a very good listener; I was comfortable with the way she introduced me to the class and what she said about my motives for being there. So far so good.

I had another class right after that (Basic Addictions, where we learn about all the different drugs and addictions and how to treat them in therapy). In this class, the professor also thought she’d “do it a little differently” by having us introduce each other rather than introduce ourselves. Here we went again.

When the woman interviewing me learned my name, she asked what it meant, to which I responded that it means “kitten” in Russian.

“Oh,” she said. “Do you like cats?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t actually.”

“Kittens?” she asked, after a marked lowering of her spirits following my anti-cat comment.

“I mean, I guess kittens are all right, but no, I don’t like cats.”

After that we moved on to other details. Let me note here that we had about 2 minutes to interview each other, followed by introductions to the class that lasted about 20 seconds each.

And this, in what I’m guessing was her well-intentioned quest to present things in the most positive of ways, is what she chose to say about me:

“Ok,” she started, “this is Kisa. She loves kittens…”

I didn’t even really hear what she said after that because I became paralyzed with this idea that I love kittens (!). I mean, loving kittens is not a bad thing I suppose, but the point is that I don’t love kittens. I never think about kittens. I’ve never had a desire to own one, and I don’t imagine I ever will.

I think I might have made a face when she said it, I’m not sure.

Here’s the thing: Even if I could get past the idea that everyone in class would think I love kittens when I don’t, I continued to have a hard time with the idea that, given 2 minutes to talk about myself and my life, I would chose to take up however much of that 2 minutes I would need to convey something as cheesy as the fact that I love kittens. Who besides a veterinarian holds kittens (not her specific kitten, but kittens in general) that close to her heart?

I wondered if I should speak up. Nobody else was making verbal amendments to their introductions. How strange would I be to interrupt my partner to tell the class, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to say that, I know she told you guys I love kittens, but I don’t actually. I don’t love kittens.”? I imagine I’d antagonize at least half the class by making such a declaration, and to what end? So that others wouldn’t be mistaken in their information regarding my affections toward certain species of mammals? Is it worse to have them believe something untrue or to speak up just to make such a seemingly shallow correction? Help me!

Well, I didn’t have my say then, but I’m saying it here just to set the record straight. I don't love kittens!

Now monkeys, that’s a different story. But then, you all knew that by now.

Crucifixes and Unibrows: A Reflection on Obsession

2005-02-02T13:45:00.000-08:00

Once in a while (twice so far in my 26 years), I get a little obsessed.

My first obsession is so goofy it would be embarrassing if I got embarrassed about all my goofy parts. Freshman year in college, my best friend Nicole and I went totally nuts for the 1970’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar. This obsession was not born out of any obsession with J.C. himself (though I was at the very end stage of my Christian stint; Nicole never went through such a phase). My obsession had everything to do with the splendor and cheese of the music, the glowing (literally—it was made in the days when a movie’s star could get away with a slightly oily, pimply complexion), natural beauty of the woman who played Mary Magdalene, and the unabashedly exposed washboard stomachs and menacingly sexy eyes of a few choice villains, namely Caiaphas and Judas. Yum.

Every day we would watch this movie. No, really. We would watch this movie Every Single Day. Every day! Not only that, sometimes we would watch it more than once. Say for instance I came back from classes at noon. I’d sit down and—first thing—rewind the tape and hit play. Nicole might roll in about 45 minutes later, at which point she’d look at me with a knowing, I’m-asking-this-question-as-a-mere-silly-formality kind of smirk and say, “do you mind if we rewind and start over?” Music to my ears. I’d scoot over to one side of our little red, velour, thrift store special couch and sit through another round of songs with names like “What’s the Buzz?”

I don't know if it was just the comfort of the familiar that had us hooked (I mean, really, what could be more comforting than knowing that--no matter how shitty my biology field experiment was going--Jesus would have it worse than me, to the tune of 40 rhythmic lashes and a cruxifiction, every single time?). It was that: the familiar, the routine, when the difficulty of living in a tiny room 2,000 miles from my family started to get to me. Jesus Christ Superstar, to this day, takes me to a happy place that few other movies can. And to boot, I've seen it on stage 4 times, in 4 different cities. Freak!

Superfreak!

My other obsession is not like that. It doesn't have to do with the routine or the familiar. It has to do with perpetual curiosity--the absolute inability to ever have quite enough information to sate my interest, and the slight madness that ensues at this realization.

At the suggestion of a trusted former professor, I recently picked up a book by Julian Barnes called Flaubert's Parrot. The (anti-) novel tells the story of the main character's obsession with French novelist Gustave Flaubert (known for Madame Bovary, most famously), and the said character's quest to uncover the story behind the author's life. The book is beautifully written, literary, intelligent, and--to one who's become similarly preoccupied with the desire to discover the person behind the art--familiar.

A copycat novel, if I were to undertake it, would be called Kahlo's Monkey.

I first learned about Frida Kahlo during an art unit of my junior year high school Spanish class. We had to choose from a list of famous Spanish-speaking artists, write a biography of the artist, then replicate one of his or her works of art. I chose Dali just for the challenge of it, but another girl in the class chose Kahlo. When I saw her version of one of Kahlo's famously unibrowed self-portraits, featuring Kahlo's pet monkey sitting on one shoulder, my curiosity was piqued. Our teacher told us about the artist's tragic bus accident, the countless operations that followed, and Kahlo's unique talent for bringing the pain of her reality to the surreal surfaces of her canvases. The next year, my brother bought me a book of her published diary entries (complete with colored-pencil doodles and mini watercolors, and filled with pages of her thoughts and feelings: mostly musings about, worries for, and anger toward her husband, Diego Rivera...Kahlo had something of an obsession of her own, or you could call it crazy love, or maybe just love, I don't know).

When I look at Kahlo's paintings, I understand that there are no new wounds in life, that the things that bring us happiness and the things that bring us to are knees are the same, across cultural lines and through generations. I think she was a genius. But the more I collect--books of her paintings, postcards with her image, a page of the USPS stamp with her likeness on it, and (a gift from my parents) a nightlight featuring one of her paintings--the more I want to know about her. The more I want to climb into one of those paintings and swim around in the murky and mournful melancholy that was Kahlo, the kind of melancholy that seems to haunt all the best artists (how lucky for the rest of us: for the sparing of it ourselves and for the spoils that we have the fortune to enjoy because of these tortured souls).

Last year I purchased a print of Kahlo's Self Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky as the finishing touch to my room decor (I chose this painting because I always thought her tryst with Trotsky was more interesting than her marriage to Rivera, mostly, though, because I feel a 50-year-after-the-fact-even-though-it's-totally-irrelevant-to-me-or-any-part-of-my-life sting every time I think about Rivera's having cheated on her with her own sister...grrrrrr). The problem was that I didn't have the money to have the painting framed the way I wanted to, so it sat in its packaging in the corner of my room until just last week, when I opted for the less interesting yet budget-savvy Cost Plus frame.

Kelsi laughed at me when I asked her opinion about putting some silver wall sconces on either side of the slightly gold-gilded frame. "The colors are fine," she said, "but it looks a little, I don't know, shriney."

I looked at Kahlo sandwiched between these two candle holders and realized Kelsi was right. Not only that, but my having given Kahlo that kind of status on my wall was not a fluke. I actually have even more admiration for her than I thought. If there's any woman in history whose mind, whose life I would like to wear like a costume for a day or two, it would be hers. I want to know what that kind of beautiful madness feels like. I want to know what it feels like to reach all the way into the deepest corners of my rueful soul and conjure up a masterpiece.

I had placed the portrait on the wall I face when I go to sleep. When I closed my eyes that night, I felt this kind of strength presiding over me-the strangest thing. It was a strength from which I felt I could draw. This print had achieved a Dorian Gray kind of life--even in all its lifelessness--on my wall. It made me wish I'd opted for the budget-savvy frame months ago. Who knows what I could have achieved by now?

Believe me, I know how borderline-creepy this borderline-obsession is, but, in my own defense, at least I didn't pick some kind of fictional character like Laura Croft or some really lame movie star like Keanu Reeves to immortalize and kowtow to (no actual kowtowing involved, by the way, but definitely some figurative genuflection). This was a real woman, one who survived some of the most heartbreaking sorrows and who turned that pain into beautiful art. I can only stand back and sing her praises; but on that subject, I do hope--for the preservation of her dignity--that Andrew Lloyd Webber never writes a musical about her.

No, MY Dad , of the Titanium Hips

2005-01-25T13:56:00.000-08:00

My Dad’s an over-achiever. I mean, any way you care to gauge the over-achieverness of a person, my Dad qualifies. The most recent incarnation of his insatiable ambition has come in his early release from the hospital less than two days after a hip replacement surgery.

My Dad’s way too young to be having a hip replaced (he’s only 48), and way, way too young to have had both hips replaced in the span of a year, but throughout the years he refused to stop playing sports like racquetball and basketball at the urging of doctors, so now he’s got titanium hips to show for it. He doesn’t mind too much. My Dad’s a glass-is-half-full kind of guy.

So anyway, he was doing so well with his physical therapy exercises following the surgery that they told him to just go home. My parents hadn’t gotten around to telling me this yet, so I was a bit surprised this evening when I called the hospital and asked for room #8, as instructed by my Mom.

“Hello?” an unfamiliar voice said.

“Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, I think I got the wrong dad.”

“Is this Kendra?”

“No, this is Kisa. Close.”

“Oh, you sounded like one of my daughters.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” I said. “Have a good night.”

I called the hospital switchboard again. “Yeah, I just called and asked for room #8, and I got a dad, but he wasn’t my Dad.”

She looked him up and told me he’d been discharged, so I called my parents at home for the details. All went well, all’s looking good. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a parent in surgery, but it’s very relieving when you hear that all went well. You just never know—even the most routine of surgeries can go horribly afoul.

After I talked to my Dad for a while, I hung up to let him get some rest. Then, as I stood in the bathroom, drying my hair in preparation to go out, I started to think about Kendra and her father.

How sad—I thought—that this man thought his daughter was calling when she really wasn’t. I mean, his voice sounded genuinely happy to hear from me, even though I wasn’t the me he thought I was. I started to hope very strongly that Kendra would call her Dad. C’mon, girl, I thought. Get off your ass and call your father. He’s in the hospital, for cryin’ out loud!

All sorts of scenarios went through my mind. What if Kendra and her father are estranged and he was hoping beyond all hope that his brush with death and subsequent hospitalization would bring her around to reconcile? He has grandchildren he’s never even met. He’s never even seen the home she and her (cockamamie) husband built, gosh, was it already four years ago? For shame.

I’m sure the father in room #8 and his daughter Kendra are just fine. I have no reason at all to think otherwise. But it’s the slight possibility that they’re not fine that made me appreciate—as I curling-ironed the ends of my hair—what an amazing father I have and how lucky I am to have him.

My Dad has set the standard pretty high for my potential mates. He's intelligent, hard-working, fair- and open-minded, generous, fun, and always, always working to learn new things and become a better person. And he's never been lazy a day in his life. Men like this are rare, and they make wonderful fathers; I can't help but compare the men I meet to him and look for these qualities. I just wanted to take a minute to appreciate him and to wish him a strong and rapid recovery, publicly.

Thank you for everything, Dad. May you enjoy your rest.

2005-01-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

Textured walls (Austin, TX) are fun to touch

Between A and B is a Three-Toothed Mechanic Named Anna

2005-01-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

I have incredibly good fortune where cars are concerned.

A friend once gave me her 1969 VW Bug when she and her boyfriend bought a new car. That little bug rumbled its way to De Anza College for 2 quarters before it finally retired itself with one final poof of non-regulated exhaust fumes, sputtering to a stop in front of my apartment building. I had transferred to San Jose State University (2 blocks from my house) by then, so all was good when the tow truck came to take it off my hands.

My current vehicle was similarly bequeathed. Three years ago, a friend of mine from Barnes & Noble told me his friend had bought a new car and was looking to gift his old one to a needy candidate.

So it was I came into the possession of a 1993 Suzuki Swift.

“Swift?” you say.

Never heard of it? Neither had I until I owned one. It looks exactly like a Geo Metro. The absolute tiny whiteness of it has earned it the name “Tic Tac,” and one of my coworkers’ favorite pastimes is making fun of its utterly ridiculous nature. (I like to think they’re just jealous).

Sure, it’s a deathtrap…a bloody mangled wreck just waiting to, begging to happen. But it gets me from A to B.

And it has no major structural problems.

There are, however, two functional problems with my Swift. The first is rather unfortunate because it happened at the hands of a friend who was trying to help. When I first obtained the car, it needed new brakes. This friend volunteered to help change them but in the process broke my door handle. So for the past 2 ½ years I’ve had to roll down the window and reach out to open the car from the outside when I get out. I don’t mind this; it actually gives me a humbling chuckle when I have to do it in front of people.

The real problem is that my car doesn’t idle. This means I have to put it in neutral at stops or it will stall.

At least that was the case until a month ago when I was rear-ended by a deranged holiday shopper near the mall. Miraculously, my rinky dink car showed no signs of damage on the outside. In fact, the only evidence that I had been hit (aside from the frighteningly loud crashing sound) was that my old school anti-theft radio (the kind you have to physically pull out of the console and take with you) flew out and landed in my lap.

But the best part of getting rear-ended was that it actually somehow fixed my idling problem. Now I can stop and sit at a red light for at least 2 minutes before the shaking begins and the car calls it quits.

Still, though, my car has begun to run poorly.

I thought an oil change would be a good idea. So I took the car to Jiffy Lube last week, where the young fellow taking down the car’s vital stats asked me questions that made me smirk in owner-sanctioned entertainment at the expense of my car.

“Suzuki Swift?” he asked. “Do you happen to know if that’s a 1.3 or 1.6 liter engine?”

I glanced at the back of the car, where stick-on numbers read “1.3”

“Um,” I said, knowing well that a 1.3 liter engine is just half a step above a moped, “I’m not sure. Do you think that 1.3 on the back means anything?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that would be 1.3.”

“Now,” he added, “this is your air filter. It’s black here, and that’s bad. It can affect your gas mileage.”

“Oh,” I said, “you mean I’ll no longer be getting 45 miles per gallon? That’s gonna suck.”

They replaced that for an added 13 bucks. The sad part was when the girl who rang me up explained the other service they’d performed.

“We checked your tire pressure,” she said, with thinly masked, well-deserved disdain for people like me. “You had some serious problems there.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Your tires are supposed to be at 35 pounds. One was at 54, one at 43, one at 19, and one at 14.”

Ouch. Dad, if you’re reading this, don’t kill me. And I’ve sinced figured out that my average tire reading between the four of them was 32.5 pounds. Only 2.5 pounds off…not too shabby.

Anyway, the car’s been acting up all week, post-oil change, and today it stalled on the road and wouldn’t start again, leaving me to finally make use of my AAA membership.

My savior was a sparsely-toothed, contracted mechanic woman named Anna…boy did she know her stuff. She got me started and back on the road in about 10 minutes, adding that it would be a shame for me to have to pay the $10/mile it would have cost if she’d ended up having to tow me.

There are some honest mechanics out there, it seems.

But anyway, my fear is that I will—Anna or no Anna—be needing to invest in alternate transportation options soon. That’s a painful thought, mostly because I’m trying to save money right now and a car was not what I had in mind to spend it on.

Still, though, I do have good luck in this category. My most ambitious hope is that the Tic Tac will hold out for another 100K or so. But if the Swift decides to put itself to sleep, I’ll be prowling Craigslist for another piece of crap that oh-so-gracelessly traverses the space between A and B.

I just love a car with character.

The Best Day of Your Life

2004-11-04T18:31:00.000-08:00

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

2004-09-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

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

2004-08-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

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

2004-08-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

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 :)

2004-08-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

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

Smells Like Piddle

2004-08-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

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!

2004-07-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

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 (you might want to grab a cup of coffee for this one)

2004-07-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

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

2004-06-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

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. :)

God Bless Kris and His Spots

2004-06-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

When I was a young girl, I had a prayer I would say every night.

It started with the standard little kid prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep…” and then changed a bit, I think because my parents didn’t want me to get freaked out by the whole “if I should die before I wake” business.

Well after that part, there was a little add-on wherein I gave shout outs to all the people I knew. I still remember it, verbatim:

“God bless Mommy and Daddy
and Kris and Kisa [don't know why the talking about myself in the 3rd person; this was pre-Elmo]
and Nana and Tata [grandparents on the Mexican side]
and Oma and Opa [grandparents on the German side]
and all our aunts and uncles and cousins and friends,
and Kris and his spots,
in Jesus’ name, amen."

Kris and his spots?

As you might know, Kris is my brother.

“Spots” was the kid term my parents taught us to describe Kris’ vitiligo [vih-dill-EYE-go], technically defined as "a skin condition resulting from loss of pigment, which produces white patches."

Kris' vitiligo appeared on his hands, elbows, and knees, and the spots would alternately grow and diminish as he got older. The doctors couldn’t predict whether they would ever stabilize, so the possibility of their growing to cover a significant portion of his skin was very real.

Thinking about that prayer now, I realize it would be difficult for anyone who overheard it to know whether we were praying for the disappearance of the spots or for their continued growth and power. It almost sounds like we were hoping his skin would, everyday, look less and less like its original shade (described affectionately by my mom as “poodoo brown”) and more and more like the shade of my own (which she calls “stock white”).

But we knew. We definitely knew.

The spots were evil.
They made him stand out.
The kids at school teased him.

The spots were a kid’s worst nightmare.

So imagine my surprise when the spots earned a new place of merit in our family just the other evening.

Indulge me while I provide a little background information.

Kris is currently working as a production assistant on a Lifetime television show called “Merge.” Production Assistant is a very broad title that could refer to anything from actual technical assistance to the picking up of the director’s dry cleaning.

Kris’ position falls somewhere in-between the two. “Merge” is a quote/unquote reality show in which a couple that has recently married moves into a new place together. The designers on the show decide which of their things can stay and go, and they do a makeover on the new space once everything is in place.

Production assistants on this show work as movers. They’re the ones who put the couple’s things where the designer decides they should go. Now, there are a few production assistants working on any given episode, and sometimes the camera shots are so quick it’s difficult to tell who’s who (because even the movers, in this case, get airtime).

My mom had taped last week’s show, and we sat down and watched it together when Kris and I were out visiting last week. We were all sitting in front of the t.v. on-edge, hoping to catch a glimpse of my bro on the tube.

Sometimes we could see him very clearly and up close, and sometimes it was more of a challenge. Once, it was up for debate because only the person’s arm was in view. Was that him or wasn’t it?

Kris solved the mystery with this line:

“No, that’s me. Look, you can see my vitiligo.”

“Huh,” we answered, collectively. "We’ll be darned. That is your vitiligo.”

We joked a little about the vigor with which he reported the clue: Look, look, it’s my condition. It’s my disorder. It’s my defect. It’s ME!!

It’s me.

The moment caused me to pause, thinking how far we’d come from hoping the “spots” would just go away. Just go away!

And to be honest, they haven’t been an issue for Kris for a good 15 years. In fact, he’s always had a strong sense of self and I suspect the condition was always more troubling for my mom than for Kris. He was her child, and this was something that had the potential to cause him heartache.

Kids can be so cruel.

And yet even as he’s long past being self-conscious, to hear my brother so proudly identify himself using the condition we once saw as so threatening we tried to pray it away every single night...

...that was kind of cool.

It’s interesting the way things that make us different can change from enemy traits to ally traits in the course of a few years. I used to hate being so tall (particularly in middle school and high school, where Amazon women aren’t in real high demand). I also disliked my name because it was weird and people couldn’t pronounce it (Keisha, Keeza, Kissa?). Now I’m happy to be an Amazon woman with a weird name, partially because those things make me different.

Oh my god, I’ve lapsed into After School Special mode again.

Forgive me, but I really feel this way.

I hope that if I ever have a kid with three arms or an extra face in the middle of his back…well, I hope he or she can learn to embrace that trait and, eventually, use it to his or her advantage: “Can I lend an extra hand?” “I know my back was turned officer, but believe me, I did see the robber, and he went thataway!”

I mean really, who wants normal?

How boring.

And so yeah, God bless Kris and his spots.

The Future of Eyewear

2004-06-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

When my brother came to visit me in San Jose last month, we took a little trip to the drugstore on the corner, where he found the best pair of sunglasses he'd ever seen. They hung lonely and faded on a revolving rack that had clearly been displaying the same glasses for at least 19 years.

The pair he zeroed in on were fluorescent yellow—faded fluorescent yellow—with a strange sort of ventilation device on the sides. They supported a fortress of lens that would prevent even the most determined ray of light from penetrating through to the wearer’s eyes. But the best feature, by far, was a faded tag attached to the center of the frames that read “Future Vision” in a 1980’s Tron-like computer font.

He had to have them.

“Hey bro, you did just have a birthday,” I said. “Put them in my cart.”

This was before I flipped over the Future Vision tag and discovered that inflation had somehow retroactively caught up with these babies: their original price tag read “$12.99.”

We nearly peed our pants laughing.

“For those?!” Kris asked. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

We went back and forth. I said I didn’t mind paying that, that I just wanted to see him happy in the way that only these beauties could make him.

He thought $4.00, the price on a nearby (albeit less exciting) pair was more like it.

So we took both pairs to the front of the store and pleaded our case. The counter man looked at me, looked at my brother, looked and the glasses, looked at my brother, and said, “$4.00.”

Kris beamed a victory smile and then turned to take the comparison glasses back to their rack. The counter man mused in his thick Middle Eastern accent, “He looks very happy now.”

“You have no idea,” I said.

Kris wore those glasses for the weekend and then carefully packed them up for his return to Hollywood, where people apparently share his aesthetic sensibilities. He’s been standing on street corners and had cars pull over, their drivers asking where they could get a pair just like his.

“Sorry,” he says, “you’ll have to go to San Jose.”

Recently, he was wearing his Future Visions on a street in Hollywood when a homeless man approached him and asked him if Kris wanted to buy the sunglasses he had to offer. It seems the man knew his audience because my bro snatched up this pair (brown monster shades with the word "sport" written in gold on the side), which immediately took top billing in his sunglass wardrobe.

Well, I’m in Colorado right now visiting my parents. They flew Kris and I both in, and Kris was kind enough to bring both pairs to share with us.

You’ll find us all modeling them below. Please don’t be jealous. I know it must be heartbreaking to realize there will likely never be another pair quite like the Future Visions, or another homeless man offering quite the same pair (for 50 cents) in YOUR neck of the woods, but I hope these pictures will be enough to bring you at least some of the joy we’ve experienced here this week.

2004-06-07T21:31:00.001-07:00

The Original "Future Visions

2004-06-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

I Always Thought Sunglasses Should Cover at Least 50% of the Face

2004-06-07T21:30:00.001-07:00

My Mom Comes Away Looking Remarkably Normal. Seems Future Visions Were MADE for Her!

2004-06-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

My Dad's Nose Never Looked So Small

2004-06-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

Fall Line 2020

I Should be the Coach!

2004-06-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

I was thinking maybe it would be nice if the Lakers actually showed up for the next game of the Finals.

Clarification

2004-06-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

I just want to add something to my last post.

I think I was insensitive in comparing relationship endings to Spring Cleaning. In doing so, I did not mean to imply that the people involved were in any way comparable to things that should be thrown away and forgotten about.

What I mean to say is that, sometimes, assessing things leads to the conclusion that something in one's life isn't working, perhaps for either party (important to note)--and SOMEbody has to do the breaking up.

When I said that somethings were "dead," I did not mean to say the people involved were no longer of any use, just that relationships themselves can grow stagnant.

I hope that was the way my words were taken, but in the event that they weren't taken this way, I apologize for my insensitivity and for any part of what I said that came across as flippant or trivializing.

I've been through a breakup that rendered me very much lost and in despair, so I know what it's like...and it's no trivial thing.

To anybody whose feelings I hurt, please accept my most sincere apologies.

I Don't Wanna Look at the Moon with You

2004-06-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

It’s Spring Cleaning time.

I’m speaking for myself, first off. The other day I used a barbeque & Trivial Pursuit party I was hostessing as a good excuse to give my room and bathroom the old once over. Except it was more like a twice or thrice over. I even ended up re-painting a nothing-colored dresser that had long sat sadly in the corner of my room begging for life.

I gave it pink—bright magenta pink—which shut it up real good.

The cleaning felt great; seeing such a tangible change was inspiring.

But that’s not the kind of cleaning I was really referring to.

Spring also brings about a different kind of cleaning: one that’s at once more subtle and more palpable. Spring, it seems, is a time for break-ups.

All around me, my friends are losing their honeys. Some of these relationships have been years in the making. Others have spanned a few precious months. But when it comes to breaking up, time spent together is not necessarily relative to pain experienced when it’s officially over. (Except it doesn’t seem to me that many relationships truly are officially over these days. It’s like getting back together is the new breaking up. But anyway…).

What is it about this time of year?

Is it really some kind of unconscious clearing out? I know it’s painful to think about it that way, especially for those who have felt the sting of an empty bed lately, but I can’t help but think the witnessing of Springtime rebirth all around can rub off on the humans a bit:

What’s blooming?
What needs re-seeding?
What’s longing to be pruned?
What is—beyond any doubt—dead?

I once broke up with a boyfriend around this time of year, but I think that actually had more to do with my birthday coming. Just like I once broke up with a boyfriend soon after my grandfather died. Just like I was once broken up with just before Christmas. I think events like this trigger an inner Gallup Poll that asks (and asks loudly), “Is this where I want to be in my life?” “Is this the person I want to be celebrating with now?”

My friend just told me about watching the full moon with her man last night and thinking how she’d watched the full moon on a previous occasion with somebody she felt less-than-thrilled about moon gazing with. The same thing happened to me before. I was on a date when the man said we should go for a drive and look at the moon, and I was so happy when driving circumstances prevented it from happening.

The voice inside me was screaming, “I don’t want to look at the moon with you!”

Or maybe it was, “I don’t want to look at the moon with you.”

And that date was a first and a last.

A full moon is nothing to be trifled with.

The moon, you see, should only be shared casually with coincidental bystanders, or passionately with good, good friends or the honey of your heart’s desire.

And when the full moon or the brilliance of Spring or a birthday or a major holiday comes around and the honey you’re with is not of your heart’s desire…well, that’s a tough day. That’s a real tough day for everybody involved.

I want to wish a personal rebirth to all those who are aching right now. I wish there were something I could do to make it feel better, but I know I can’t. A breakup without mourning could only come after a relationship that was insignificant to being with. I know yours were not of that category and so I hope your healing processes are thorough and—ultimately—refreshing.

Kahlil Gibran wrote, “when you experience sorrow, know that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

May you take this time for personal growth and, in the end, find someone with whom you can relax, someone who wants nothing more than to watch the moon with you.

Ewwwwwww!

2004-05-31T01:01:00.000-07:00

Much of the time, in the world of management (I'm learning), there are way too many things to do.

But on rare occasions (such as tonight) you find things to do.

Or somebody else finds them for you.

Tonight, my boss decided that the gum needed to be scraped off the hardwood and tile floors around our store. My first response when I heard this, was, "There's gum on the hardwood and tile floors?" She looked at me like I was a leprechaun.

“Yeah,” she said.

This is how good managers are: they notice the little things.

So I grabbed a blade and set to scraping. Scraping gum off any kind of flooring turns out to be—not surprisingly—quite a humbling experience. But there are a few things that can take the humbling exercise up a couple of notches. Like when a little girl (7 years-old or so) standing nearby a particularly gummy spot I was working on asked me what I was doing; said, “ewwww,” when I told her; then scratched her head and said, “it looks like you’re ruining the floor with that blade.”

Thank you.

“Yeah,” I said, “but we don’t have anything else to get it off with.”

Then her friend piped in and, pointing to a big glob of gum a few feet away, said, “There’s some more over there. Are you gonna get that?”

Thanks. Thanks again.

There’s something very intimate about digging into a months-old glob of gum with a box cutter blade and revisiting the smell of spearmint that had been locked in below the surface and trampled upon by a million anonymous feet. “Wow,” I thought when the aroma hit me, “this was in some stranger’s mouth. And now I get to scrape it up.” It’s a kind of intimate you could very well live a lifetime without experiencing and be, methinks, just fine.

There are some tasks that I never give a second thought...things that are taken care of invisibly, things that just get done somehow.

I was thinking about this when we did inventory the other night. The freaky people from RGIS were there (and I only say “freaky" because it always creeps me out how there are like 1,500 of them who come swarming into wherever they’re working that night and just type numbers into little computers all night like Night of the Living Dead: The Accountants Return. And they hardly say a word. If you’ve ever worked in retail during inventory, you probably know what I’m talking about. Really, it’s a little scary).

Well, I realized that people don’t EVER give a thought to those people unless they’re working somewhere and it happens to be inventory night. And then the RGIS people are seen as the enemy because they’ve invaded the store and who the hell wants to be there for inventory anyway? The RGIS people are always being yelled at to rescan a section or to stop making a mess or to just be faster (if that were humanly possible). Plus, they always work overnight and have to go on break at the same time like some kind of zombie herd.

Now THAT is a thankless job.

And then there's the work that janitors do every single day. And I do mean every single day; the janitors at my store work 7 days/week. They clean the store in the morning and then have to return in the afternoon to restock the bathroom supplies. Sometimes they’ll be all dressed up because they had to leave a party or some other event just to come make sure the customers at Barnes & Noble would be able to comfortably wipe their asses.

These are customers, by the way, who can’t even manage to keep gum in their mouths.

I walked into the restroom the other day and a co-worker who was on her way out warned me not to go into the first stall. ‘What’s in the 1st stall?” I thought. But I knew I didn’t want to know what was in the 1st stall because whatever it was, it promised to be gross. I wondered how many other people had walked in and walked right out of that same stall because they didn’t want to deal with whatever was waiting in there.

Then I wondered absently when it would be taken care of. And I remembered: the janitor women would be in at 7:00 the next morning. They would take care of it. They would unclog the toilet or wipe the crap off the seat or pick the bloody tampon off the floor. They would do it.

That thought—thinking of it in those terms—makes me want to cry.

How could this be okay?

How could we have agreed to this setup, collectively?

And I think it’s kind of disturbing that scraping gum off a floor is an “experience” for me—something I can examine from afar like a detached anthropologist and have the leisure to write a blog about. 'Hmmm…how did that make me feel?'

And for others, it’s a living. It’s what you do to make ends meet.

I wish I could give a big hug of gratitude to the people who work tirelessly in thankless jobs that are truly service oriented…like, the Ultimate kind of service.

I want them to know that there are people who see them, who appreciate them, who know they are so many heros working so many miracles, day after day.

Pomp & Circumstance: The Eric Gagnes of the World

2004-05-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Recently, I’ve come to believe that few things are better than being witness to the realization of a dream.

I don’t mean learning that your best friend’s best sex dream just became a reality, although I suppose that would be cool too.

A couple of days ago I received a graduation announcement and attached letter (on Yale letterhead) from my friend Tamika (one of the true, brilliant goddesses I’ve had the fortune to know), who’s graduating tomorrow with her degree in Classics.

In the letter, she reminded me of a day a couple of years ago when we were at work and a cheesy classical music favorites CD was playing; “Pomp & Circumstance” came on, and she told me then that she was considering returning to Yale (where she’d been going before a short hiatus) to complete her degree. And now here she is, cap and gown, “Pomp & Circumstance” and all.

The letter made me all kinds of teary, the good kind. To know that a person I care about has worked so diligently toward accomplishing a goal, has been recognized for that hard work, and is now about to feast on the fruits—well I’ll say honestly that I can think of few better things in this life.

And there’s this, too: I can’t wait to see what she does next.

I feel that way about all the people I know, and things are very good in the lives of the people around me.

My Ma is set to become a certified Feng Shui practitioner in a couple of months and loves what she does. Her and my Pa (who is now fully recovered from a hip-replacement surgery (!) he underwent a few months ago and is working and playing as hard as ever) just completed the landscaping—done entirely by the sweat of their own brows—of their gorgeous new home in Colorado. They are both very involved in their community and I’ve never seen them happier.

My brother is now working on a television show down in SoCal, just moved into a nice apartment, and his co-ed softball team (the Isotopes, ‘Topes for short) is in first place ;)

Kelsi is chugging right along with her Master’s degree in Psychology, she’s written some great new songs recently, is going to Mexico for a month this summer and get her Spanish on, and is fixin’ to start her field placement position in the fall. I am awash in admiration.

Nicole returned to school this semester and is writing again, which is a great thing for the world at large, by the way. My gal's got stories that need to be told, and told well. Her perfectly chosen metaphors and incredible knack for creating mood are enough to penetrate the heart and psyche of any reader. Also, she just learned she'll be able to graduate as early as next Spring with a degree that I swear was designed just for her: it's called Creative Arts. Awesome!

JD will walk this week (he graduated last winter) and just told me he’s going to Europe for the summer—Greece and Germany and wherever else the wind may carry him…weeeeeeeeee.

My friend Rocky is graduating with his Master’s in Philosophy and is moving back to Boulder, CO next month, a long-time dream of his.

My friends Dave (the one I accidentally knifed at work [who’s healed very nicely, by the way—good job Dave]) and Ramon are both graduating from SJSU this week.

I just learned my friend Brent is starting school this fall (art school in San Francisco, which he’s been talking about for years and at which he will absolutely flourish—he’s remarkably talented).

My sweet and lovely friend Sharon is now halfway done with her Master’s in Library Science, AND she recently chose a wedding dress (which is a wondrous feat in the world of wedding planning, I’m told). Her roommate and our mutual friend Maribel is graduating this week with her Master’s in Education and will begin shopping for a Ph.D program soon.

The future Dr. Rotsko (my friend Nick) just had his 2nd paper published in an academic journal of philosophy and also completed his 5th straight semester as a President’s Scholar (4.0).

My friend Don from high school just finished his first year in the MBA program at the University of Michigan and accepted an internship on Wall Street (!) for this summer.

And I don’t know if this is a bigger accomplishment for me or for my beautiful honorary niece, Maya (about to turn 2), but she just learned to say (with some, ahem, assistance), and I quote: “Dodgers…awesome!” It’s the cutest and truest thing ever to cross the lips of a toddler. She’s a genius!

There’s a lot to celebrate these days.

I know, I know. One should not live one’s life through the accomplishments of others. And it’s not that. What I mean by listing all this is to say that my being able to share in this good new is, I consider, a true gift in my life. These are the kinds of things (and forgive me, my sappy language) that warm my heart.

I think it’s a somewhat commonly held belief that only relatively few people really change the world for the better—the Martin Luther Kings, the Mother Teresas, the Eric Gagnes :). But I would disagree with that. I believe each person—setting out to do what it burns within her or him to do—in so doing makes the world a beautiful place. Imagine all those around you, whose lives touch yours—well, imagine them all truly fulfilled, truly happy. That, in my mind, is a better world.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate all these people and anyone else who’s got great things going on that I haven’t been nosey enough to learn about yet. I consider myself grateful to know you and admire you, and I wish you—always—only the very best.

P.S. If you've never heard of Eric Gagne, I suggest a Google search :)

P.P.S. If you've got some good news to share, please write and tell me about it (you can access my e-mail by clicking on "view my complete profile"). I'd love to hear all about it. If it asks you to register, just make up a name or e-mail...I don't think it's too painful, but I haven't tried it so I wouldn't take my word for it.

Boobies All Around

2004-05-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

It had to happen sooner or later.

There comes a day in every woman's life when she realizes she needs a new bra. And that, my friends, is a sad, sad day.

It's not about the *idea* of a new bra. Of course, new things are nice. But the buying of the bra...now that's definitely less fun than a barrel of monkeys. Trying on bras is second only to trying on bathing suits in the world of torturous activities in which women willfully engage.

I guess I was feeling masochistic yesterday.

So I battled the Valley Fair parking lot at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon (and won! I found a spot right near the entrance. Sure, it was the entrance on the complete opposite end of the mall from where I wanted to be, but it was a spot near the entrance nonetheless).

I dodged various obstacles including strollers, midgets, and people trying to sell me cell phones and then stopped in awe of the task in store for me when I came upon it--shining like some kind of half-angelic, half-evil beacon on the second floor of the mall--Victoria's Secret, all pink-and-white-and-blacklike.

"You're on a mission," I told myself, and mustered up a facial expression that read 'I know exactly what I'm looking for and where I'm going to find it. You may try to speak with me if you wish, but you'll be wasting your breath. And no, I don't need a Victoria's Secret charge card.'

So, either the sales *associate* was not skilled in face-reading, or my confidence diminished somewhere between the threshold and the first display containing underthings with no easily identifiable purpose or mode of operation.

And I'm leaning toward the latter.

"Hi!" she said. "May I help you find something?!"

I had a few doubts about whether or not she actually could, which surfaced when I noticed her own boobies were only partially contained and in danger of Janet Jackson-ing at any moment. But I reasoned she was probably aiming for that look and acquiesced.

"Yeah. I'm looking for a strapless bra."

"Ok great! We have a number of options for you. Walk with me."

This was already bad news. I didn't really want options. I wanted there to be a standard-issue bra made for my purpose and I wanted it to be perfect. But what could I do? I followed her to a display.

"Now," she said, and looked directly, directly at my breasts. "What size would you be, then?"

"Well it really depends on the bra."

"Shall we measure you?" And with that, she pulled a tape measure from a holster and slung it around my back.

'Whoah there, Little Missy!,' I thought, a favorite line of my friend Wolfgang's echoing in my mind.

My inner puritan had a say as well: shouldn't we be behind closed doors (or at least somewhere other than in front of a huge, windowed store front in a busy mall) for this sort of activity?

"Ok," she said. "We have this bra, which has a nice gel shaper in the cups."

I touched the cup and it moved. It squished! Bras shouldn't squish: boobies squish!

"Uh. No, thank you. Do you have one without padding?"

"Ok. Why don't I just take you to the dressing room? All the bras should be there and then we won't have to walk around and find them all separately."

This seemed like a good idea until I came to realize that "all the bras" included only two other models, and they weren't, in fact, in the dressing room. I stood there and watched while she rifled through a number of little boxes looking for my size in the two remaining strapless models. When she saw they weren't there, she called an invisible fellow sales person using a little hands-free cell phone attachment kind of thing and requested the bras. This would seem like a cool trick, except that she didn't seem to know how to use the thing (there was some button she was forgetting to push) and had to repeat everything. Additionally, she kept dropping the little speaker part down her blouse and had to fish it back out every few seconds.

We waited until the invisible sales person showed herself with only one bra in her hand. I began to think I just might have had an easier time on my own. Did all this hullabaloo really save us the "trouble" of walking around to find TWO bras on our own?

"Here you go," my helper said, "this is the [fill in the blank with something sounding like "Angel Sleak Body" or something like that] bra."

For a second I thought she was going to accompany me into the dressing room and I had to ask myself whether or not I was entirely opposed to the idea. Despite all the superfluous fuss and the gaping holes in what's clearly trying to be excellent customer service, there was something sexy about having another woman take such a keen interest in my breasts. At that point we were allies, united in the goal of getting me the proper support. Maybe she'd want to see the once-impossible dream through to its fruition (?)

But she had other hapless souls to attend to.

I was now all alone in my battle.

And that bra...well, that bra beat me.

Once on, it looked like something from Madonna's "Vogue" video and felt like something you'd force onto violent mental patients to keep them at bay.

I got dressed and emerged from the dressing room, downtrodden.

There was another boobie-bulging associate there, happy to take the reins. "How'd that work out for you?" she asked.

"Um. Do you have a strapless bra that isn't pointy or that doesn't make me feel like my boobs are sitting on a shelf?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, let me bring you the [whatever] bra...it's much better."

And she did. And it was.

She even walked me through the incredibly complicated 5-in-one convertible strap options. She told me I can have straps, one strap (those tacky 80's looking blouse-styles), halter top strap (nice feature, by the way), strapless, or racerback.

I didn't know anything about racerbacks
...didn't think I owned anything with a racerback
...am not given to racing.

But whatever it is--this racerback thing--my new bra can handle it!

So yeah, I bought it.

At the register I encountered a pleasant woman who made friendly conversation and who even winked a sweet wink at me when I passed her later in the mall. If I hadn't heard her call another female employee by the name "Mystique," I might have thought Victoria's Secret was a perfectly normal place, after all.

But it's not. And you shouldn't go there unless you really really need a bra with racerback options.

I have to say, though, walking around the mall afterward with that little pink-and-white handle bag containing my new 5-in-one non-shelf-like, non-pointy bra, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I felt I'd made my breasts proud. And yes, I hope it's a long, long time before I have the need to go there again.

People READ Here?!

2004-04-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

Those who know me well would agree that my moments of patriotism are few and far between. Most frequently, I am struck with American pride when I happen to pass by the Civic Center just before the start of the monthly naturalization ceremony. Hundreds of new citizens and their families will be waiting in a long line, dressed in clothing often representing their native countries, there to celebrate the reward of years of work, and waiting, and work, and waiting.

It's a reminder to me that many sacrifice much for the freedoms our country offers...it's a reminder to me that I have a great deal for which to be thankful. And I do consider myself blessed.

I suppose it makes sense that encounters with foreign-born people could bring forth patriotism. And yesterday I had one such encounter.

I was working at the bookstore when a man walked up to me and said, "So, do you sell a lot of books here?"

I wasn't sure if he meant "here" as in the bookstore, or "here" as in the bargain section, where I was standing when he asked.

So I asked, "do you mean 'here' as in...."

"Here. This bookstore," he said.

"Well, yeah. We sell quite a few books here."

"Oh. That is very surprising to me. I am from Europe, and it is my understanding that people in the United States don't read...they only watch T.V."

I should say that his tone was not at all surprised. It was simply sarcastic...like he'd really been looking forward to having the chance to say this to me [to somebody, some American, anyway].

"No," I said. "A lot of people read here."

Again. "Really? Yes because this is such a big store, such a selection. I am very surprised you sell books. In Europe, we all believe that you don't read books in America. You only watch T.V."

Didn't he just say that? Was it that great a line it warranted repeating?

I was surprised to find myself feeling a little angry. "Well, when you go back to Europe you can tell them people actually read in the United States...Not everybody in this country is as dumb as our president."

"Yes. I didn't think you read here."

What the?

The thing is, I can't completely blame him. The fact is that a lot of people DON'T read here.

And a lot of people do a lot of T.V. watching in Europe, too.

It is frustrating to me that Americans have such a bad reputation to overcome. And yes, I understand its origins and the commonly encountered nationalism--coupled with ignorance--that keep the reputation alive. But a stereotype is a stereotype, and it's annoying no matter where it comes from.

Death Bed Therapy

2004-02-28T00:35:00.000-08:00

“Modern man lives in a state of low-grade vitality. Though generally he does not suffer deeply, he also knows little of true creative living. Instead of it, he has become an anxious automaton. His world offers him vast opportunities for enrichment and enjoyment, and yet he wanders around aimlessly, not really knowing what he wants and completely unable, therefore, to figure out how to get it. He does not approach the adventure of living with either excitement or zest. He seems to feel that the time for fun, for pleasure, for growing and learning, is childhood and youth, and he abdicates life itself when he reaches “maturity.” He goes through a lot of motions, but the expression on his face indicates his lack of any real interest in what he is doing. He is usually either poker-faced, bored, aloof, or irritated. He seems to have lost all spontaneity…He spends endless time trying either to recapture the past or to mold the future. His present activities are merely bothersome chores he has to get out of the way.” ~Fritz Perls from "The Gestalt Approach & Eye Witness to Therapy"

Kelsi read this quote to me from a book she’s studying as part of her Masters degree in Holistic Psychology. It struck me because it scares the hell out of me in the way that only true (and truly disturbing) ideas can. Who would want to live this way? And yet who could protest the truth in the statement?

How to avoid the humdrum, the mundane, the mediocre, the settling for what we can convince ourselves is good enough?

I told Kelsi that if I had significant interest, I would invent a new kind of therapy called “Deathbed Therapy,” whose principle tenet is so basic that one need not even include an actual therapist. It’s helped me confront fears and do things that seemed somehow beyond my capacity.

It goes like this: When you think of something you want in life (long-term or immediate) but that seems scary, you just think, ‘If I’m lucky enough to take a graceful, deathbed exit from this life, and I’m lying there reflecting, is this gonna be one of those things that I think about NOT having done and go, “Stupid! Why didn’t I just do that?! And now there’s no going back and what was I so afraid of anyway?…In a few hours I’ll be dead and who cares?!’”

In the past, this exercise has enriched my life in little ways, from allowing me to have a damned good time while making a fool of myself on a dance floor, to bigger ways, like encouraging me to pour my heart out in a secret admirer-like love letter or taking a trip abroad by myself. And I don’t regret those things at all. In fact, I’ve never regretted the things I HAVE done.

Kelsi told me they already invented that kind of therapy: it’s called Existential Psychotherapy. Fair enough. I don’t mind sharing proprietary rights with the likes of Irvin Yalom.

Really, though…isn’t it that simple? Can’t it be? I know we’ve all heard this a hundred times, but that doesn’t make it less true; it simply makes us less open to hearing it because the message has become trite: Life is Short.

As proof, I offer that my 10-year high school reunion is next year already.

My friends are all getting married and having kids.

I refuse to call this a quarterlife crisis.

It’s a recommitment to the idea of living my life
aware,
awake,
fully,
and joyfully.

I want to say the silly thing and make the crazy decision and see the world and not think that because someone or something is different, that someone or something should be avoided, made fun of. Think of the opportunities for fun and growth in opening up one’s mind to new experiences and different people.

Think how much time we’ve already wasted!

I offer this NON-rhetorical question to myself and anyone interested: What is the thing I (you) want out of this life, right now?

What stands in the way of my (your) doing that thing, having that thing, making that thing happen, right now?

…

That’s not a good excuse.

100 years, max. Why wouldn’t I make the most of it?

I remember something an older man once told Kelsi while they shared a seat during a trip on a Greyhound bus:

“Might as well make a good go of it [life], otherwise you’re just turnin’ good food into shit.”

I'll Take Two of Your Finest Pennies

2004-02-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

Refund checks are the best. A tax refund check is the paramount variety—mine usually hovers around the $300 range and comes exactly when I need some extra cash (ok, that’s always, but still, they come when I Most Especially need some extra cash).

But there are other types of refund checks, of course.

Utility companies are big on these, particularly if the customer discontinues service. They don’t normally exceed, say, 10 bucks, and it can feel pretty silly to cash or deposit one, but they’re nice all the same.

A couple days ago I received a refund check from our utility company, PG&E. I could tell from the envelope that it was a check, which is always exciting, but I tried not to get my hopes up, knowing I couldn’t have overpaid them by much (we’ve been using the heaters with wild abandon).

Still though, I tore open the envelope and sought out the amount, picturing what I could buy (even if only a cup of coffee) with my surprise money.

Surprise indeed!

5 cents.

They sent me a check for 5 cents.

They spent 37 cents to send me a check for 5 cents.

My check was signed by one K.M Harvey, CFO and Treasurer of PG&E, as well as Mr. Michael Donnelly, Assistant Treasurer. I was flattered they both took the time.

First I just threw the check away, but shortly thereafter my friend Nick came by and, in telling him about it, I realized the situation was too ridiculous to simply let pass. I fished the check out of the trash and began brainstorming with him: how best to handle this newfound wealth?

I would definitely be going to the bank with the check, but which action to take?

I could simply deposit it. Or would it be funnier to cash it? Nick thought I should cash it and walk away from the desk smiling, whistling, and flipping my (hopefully) shiny new nickel merrily in the air.

I could also deposit a portion of it and sign for cash back in the presence of the teller. Nick said I should proudly declare, “Yes, and I’ll take two of your finest pennies, please,” pointing to the teller and winking with the word “finest.”

I could sign it over to Nick. How about this: I let him strong-arm me into the bank lobby, making a big show of it. He shoves me against the counter, clearly forcing me to fill out the necessary paperwork and capturing the attention of the guard, who decides he’d better keep an eye on us. He grabs me by the elbow very ostentatiously and leads me to the teller, where I give her his deposit slip and my 5-cent check, making a sad face and scowling at Nick like some little sister who just had her chocolate chip cookie bullied out of her.

5 cents!

There’s a notice on the bottom of the check that reads “Void after 90 days.” How about I take it to the bank on the 91st day and, when they refuse to cash or deposit it, I dramatically throw my hands in the air yelling, “this is bullshit!”

I have nothing more to say about that really.

The Big Game

2004-01-31T14:23:00.000-08:00

About 6 years ago I made a deliberate trip to a bookstore on Superbowl Sunday. I claimed to be in search of intelligent life, figuring if there were romantic possibilities lurking about the greater metropolitan Denver area (where I was living at the time), they might best be discovered during this crucial moment of unbridled American machismo. Basically, it occurred to me that anyone away from the TV at that moment (especially one whose alternate locale was the bookstore—Tattered Cover—a thriving independent bookstore, at that) was someone worth getting to know.

Oh, the idealism of youth. The self-righteousness, perhaps(?).

I didn’t meet anyone interesting that day. And anyway, how much more worthy was my cause? Instead of being in the bookstore seeking to expand my web of knowledge, I was in there on the make! What a phony baloney. (I’m reminded of a book I saw the other day called When God Winks on Love, subtitled Let the Power of Coincidence Lead You to Love. All I could think was this hypothetical testimonial from readers-turned-devotees to the author’s cause: “The coincidence I masterminded worked out beautifully.” Ridiculous.)

I know what part of my problem was at the time: I had just returned to the States from an extended stay in Mexico, where my new awareness of sub-par living conditions greatly soured my outlook on American wastefulness and decadent self-indulgence. To me, the Superbowl and everything that touched it was evidence of a spoiled rotten population with too much time on its hands and its priorities way, way off-base.

And I still feel that way sometimes. And I don’t plan to watch tomorrow’s game or wager any money on it or even bother to check the score in the next day’s newspaper. But that’s mainly because the Raiders aren’t playing this year (and that’s assuming I’m kind enough to term what they did last year “playing.” Other words that came to mind are “floundering,” [are you guys] “kidding?!,” and, simply, “Sad. So sad.”). It’s not that I care particularly about football (certainly not in the way I care about baseball, not in the way I have elaborate fantasies about meeting the Dodgers’ Paul LoDuca), but I am no longer opposed to the idea of sitting down for an afternoon and enjoying the be-all, end-all, American sporting Super Event.

Please indulge my desire to share a few reasons for the change of heart.

I’ve thought a lot in recent years about the Superbowl in relation to the World Cup. I happened to be in Mexico when the World Cup was here in the United States, and I was struck by the serious devotion to fútbol (soccer) I found among the people there. One day when Mexico was playing Germany (causing me, in my mixed-raced Beanerschnitzel-ness, great inner-conflict), I noticed that the town where I was staying was teeming with young people who would otherwise have been studying at the time. I stopped a young boy and asked, “Why aren’t you all in school? Is there some sort of holiday or something?” to which he answered, “Mexico’s playing,” with a look on his face that said precisely, ‘Like, duh.’

My friend Kelsi was somewhat disgusted by this fanaticism, sparking a great debate between us. I surprised myself by presenting the argument that soccer, while not being the most intellectual of pursuits, was a wonderfully unifying activity. It was the only thing I could think of that so great a percentage of people worldwide took very seriously and agreed upon: The importance of the sport’s outcomes are agreed upon. The rules are agreed upon. That grown men should put their machismo on hold, flop, and cry to their heart’s content if it means drawing the attention of the ref and, ultimately, a yellow card, is absolutely agreed upon.

To me soccer is the innocuous version of war. (Excepting, of course, the unfortunate incidents of murder and mass-suffocation that have resulted from the games more fervent, more overzealous elements—to everything, there are extremes). Countries from all over the world come together once every four years and settle their scores in a forum where the laws are set, the game is timed (though loosely sometimes), and everyone has the chance to cover his privates before any serious damage can be done. Why can’t men always play by the rules in this way?

American football is just a microcosm of this worldwide phenomenon. It’s a less-exciting, heavily padded, far-too-oft-stalled version of soccer, but a version all the same. Black Hole Raider fans excluded, grown men come together to play or to cheer for their favorite teams in a normal, healthy way. We need not kill each other to prove our superiority. Why not just run faster, block better, or have a person on our team whose precise aim and strong “gun” means an extra six points rather than an extra person dead?

And there’s another thing. In all my former pooh-poohing of the Big Game, what I had neglected to consider were the humans who comprised the teams. I had forgotten that, behind every facemask and (behind that) every snarl of threat and audible declaration of dominance, is a man with a dream—a man who has, no doubt, been working day after day and year after year for the chance to be, in this exact moment, on this very field. Who am I to criticize that? Put aside the announcers, the commercials, the millions of dollars exchanging hands, and you’ve got about 100 men who are about to experience the best goddamned day of their lives. And yeah, I support that.

P.S. Please send any comments to scoobisnac2000@yahoo.com

Did I say Always Right?...

2004-01-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

It seems we’ve created a colossal monster. Or, to be more exact, we’ve created millions of lesser monsters that, when considered individually, are really just singular off-shoots of (maybe roughly the size of the fingernail of) one, big, sweaty, ugly, snaggle-toothed beast: The Customer.

And how did we do this? Well that’s easy. Someone, somewhere, in some fluorescent lit conference room came up with the phrase that would become the bane of retail and restaurant workers from then until somebody comes up with a truer (and yet equally profitable) phrase…the phrase, of course, being “The customer is always right.”

Whoever came up with that phrase couldn’t possibly have been in contact with any actual customers, or at least not the kind who hang around bookstores. I know what you all are thinking (I used to think it myself)…The bookstore—what a mellow place to work. What a nice environment. Books. What could be better than working around books all day? And to be honest, that’s mostly true. But there’s a definite, lurking danger hidden below, around, and inside words like “mostly”—that danger being what “mostly” doesn’t include.

Some examples:

1) Golf Club Guy, who’s been an everyday regular since the first time I worked at Barnes and Noble, about 3 years ago. He earned his nickname by bringing (you guessed it) his golf clubs to the store with him and practicing his swing in the parking lot. As far as I know, the man has never purchased anything more than a cup of coffee, and yet he still feels it’s his right to remove an entire shelf of books from the poetry section and use the then-empty shelf as his personal coffee table. He comes to the store in the evenings, but when he was a morning customer, he was joined by the likes of:

2) Motorcycle Man, who is also still a regular and who earned his name because of the dirt bike attached to the back of his truck. The truck, it seems, is his bedroom, while Barnes and Noble, he seems to think, is his living room. Then there’s

3) Obsessive-Compulsive Lady Part 1, who used to grab a stack of books, sit on the floor in the children’s section, and tear tiny pieces off the corners of every page, creating a sea of tiny white scraps all around her. She was soon asked to leave and was replaced by

4) Obsessive-Compulsive Lady Part 2, who comes in every morning and has to move a table in the children’s section over about 1 ½ inches before she can comfortably sit and do whatever the hell it is she does all day.

5) Que Buena, a Hispanic man who hangs around the magazine section and, when a girl he likes walks by, stares her down and says in a thick accent, “Oh…My…God” real slowly, the words dragging out and morphing together in one long, creepy mantra.

6) Thank goodness, not a regular, is the man who was sitting in (again) the children’s section of all logical places, and masturbating while reading (naturally) a math book. Yes, I said masturbating. Yes, I said a math book. Somehow, this escaped the notice of not only all the employees working, but the plainclothes security men as well. He was only discovered, in fact, when the fruits of his labor landed (yes landed) on the leg of a woman sitting nearby, who screamed and went home to change, sanitize, and tell her husband. She returned shortly thereafter to tell the manager, who was amazed to find the man still seated right where she’d left him, still reading the same sexy math book. He was shocked to be asked to leave and insisted on a full explanation of what was wrong with his being there.

7) There was the man who was caught stealing but who managed to escape security losing only his backpack. They opened it to see what all he’d taken and also discovered hypodermic needles and a small stash of what they figured must be heroin. He returned a little while later, asking for his backpack, and ended up going into a full-on seizure in, of course, the children’s section.

It’s a wonder there are still parents willing to take their kids there. Luckily, I was not there to witness those last two incidents.

Once, an employee found these romantic items in a lady’s bathroom stall: an empty half-bottle of champagne, an empty box of stolen Godiva chocolates, and a pair of lady’s panties. If that doesn’t make it into the Date Hall of Fame!

These are clearly the extreme examples and not a fair representation of the knowledge-hungry folks who comprise most of our clientele. And it’s not even them who prompted me to write this. It was the woman who called the other day with a four-book long list of requests. The first book, we had in the store. The second and third I happily ordered for her, but the fourth was one we couldn’t get because there weren’t any in our warehouses and the publisher information was not provided.

Her: What do you mean you can’t get it?!
Me: Well, it’s not available from any of our warehouses.
Her: Can’t you call the publisher?!
Me: Sometimes we can, but this publisher’s information is not provided. It’s possible you’d have better luck at Borders(?)
Her: What’s Borders?
Me: Another bookstore, like ours.
Her: Can you call them, then?
Me: You want me to call Borders?
Her: Yeah, call them.

I should say here that her request might have stood a chance of being honored if she weren’t so rude.

Me: I’m sorry, we’re not really in the practice of making business for our competitor.

And this is where the non sequitur of all non sequiturs came:

Her: Can’t you call them for me?! I have a bad back!

I think the fact that most customers are familiar with this “Customer is always right” business just works to perpetuate their spoiled, demanding behavior. A person should be able to work in the service industry and still retain a decent amount of integrity, no? Just ask the manager who was lucky enough to have to clean up what didn’t land on the leg of sexy math man’s poor victim: Some customers are not only not right: They’re just wrong. Just really, really, really wrong.

Mr. Bubble Gum Ring

2004-01-24T01:32:00.000-08:00

On the bus a couple of evenings ago, I was kept entertained by a man and woman sitting at the front of the bus and talking (though they were seated right across the aisle from one another) as if there were miles between them. They seemed to know each other only marginally, through mutual halfway house friends (from what I could gather—and it’s not eavesdropping if the people are talking that loud). Regardless, when the woman discovered they were headed to the SAME halfway house just then (him because he lived there, her because her friend lived there), she sidled up next to him.

“Well, then I’ll sit next to you, since we’re going in the same direction,” she said. Then, nudging him, she added, “Hey there, Mister…Bubble…Gum…Ring. Huh huh.”

He giggled knowingly then, and the two of them sat there staring straight into each other’s eyes, “huh huh-ing” in a knowing and, then, surprisingly familiar way.

I say surprising because, at that point, she put her arm around him (he responded by warning her he was sick) and then he said, “Charlene, right?”

And she said, “Dor-een.”

And he said, “I was close enough.” Which she apparently agreed with, because when he asked, she agreed to stop with him for a soda at Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way to where they were going.

I was rapt the entire way home, listening for any clue into what “Mister Bubble Gum Ring” might have been referring to. Did he wear such a ring? Had he once given her one? What is a bubble gum ring, anyway? It sounded kinky, the way she said it, but “kinky” didn’t really seem an applicable term for either party. Who can say about those types of things, though?

I love the bus.

A few years ago, I was sitting on the 22 (Eastridge Mall to Palo Alto Caltrain Station) when a man and woman (not together but having apparently struck up a conversation at the bus stop) boarded, both with chocolate rings around their mouths. She was carrying a big, Costco-sized container of chocolate muffins, which she had, by all outward appearances, been kind enough to share.

[I’d seen the woman before. We’d once been sitting at the same bus stop and she told me about having worked twenty-some years at the now-defunct Del Monte canning plant in San Jose before deciding to take an office job. She advised me against taking such a job (secretary), because “the men, you know, they only want one thing.” I’d been facing forward, and when it became clear she wasn’t going to continue that sentence, I looked at her to find her making that finger-sliding-in-and-out-of-a-hole-made-by-the-other-thumb-and-forefinger motion while watching me with a raised eyebrow. Ohmigod!]

Anyway, the man seemed about her age (mid- to late-50’s), and wasn’t so much talking with her as listening to her.

She talked about things I can’t remember now, and then stood abruptly when she realized we had reached her stop. Though the man had said absolutely nothing the entire way, when she stood, she shook his hand and said, “I wish you well. You seem like a lovely person.”

His response was, “I am.”

That’s it. No “thank you.” No humble “puh-shaw” and dismissive waving-off. Just a simple, “I am.”

What I thought was so great about this transaction was that “lovely” would rank about 9,987 on a list of 10,000 adjectives I would have thought of in describing this man. He was very large and very stinky with a scraggly beard and crooked teeth and, you’ll remember, a big chocolate ring around his mouth.

But that was only on the outside. Whatever it was he knew he had inside of him—whatever it was that made him lovely—she had seen it. He knew it was there and she had glimpsed it. And I thought that was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever witnessed. Imagine how different the world would be if everyone could honestly describe himself or herself as “lovely,” could accept a compliment that soberly and know it held within it some truth.

Or imagine if we all went around commenting on each other’s loveliness and sharing our chocolate muffins.

I think I had a vision of my dream world that day. Who’d have thought it would happen on the 22? I must always strive to keep my eyes and ears wide open. There are a million transpirings to witness and overhear in a day, and some of them--even on the Urinemobile of all Urinemobiles, the 22 bus--give me the kind of renewed hope that every person needs now and then to remind him or her of what's awe-inspiring, what's comical, what's worth it, in this world.

Hoop-Jumping

2004-01-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

Last month I took the CBEST (California Basic Education Skills Test) as a preliminary step in attaining my adult teaching credential. The CBEST isn’t known for putting its takers up to challenging mental feats of strength (it’s not like taking the GRE or the Bar Exam). Mostly, it’s just another hoop to jump through—a barrier between the school districts and the mobs of motley folk who would gladly take $110/day to substitute teach or $30/hour to teach ESL, if it were simply a matter of having the desire.

The CBEST had been a pain in my ass for a few months. I’d signed up to take it once, paying $20 more than the initial fee because I’d signed up late. Then I missed that exam because of car-borrowing schedule conflicts, which sucked. Two months later (when it was finally offered again) I signed up early enough to pay only the regular $40 the second time around, and made sure to have my travel plans well-outlined. That’s a total of $100 I paid in order for the state to tell me, on an official piece of (not just paper) stock paper, that I can convert fractions to percentages and identify the closest synonyms to obscure words like “strange,” or “ambiguous” if asked to do so.

The reading section was easy, the math a fun little blast from the past (I realized I hadn’t done any math—other than standard arithmetic—in ten! years), and then came the essays. Now, nobody likes an in-class essay (let alone 2!), and despite what y’all might think, English majors are no exception. It might be slightly easier for us to whip out lengthy, super cheese responses to the types of generic questions asked in these standardized tests, but it’s no less obnoxious.

The first question had something to do with whether or not we were currently living in something that could be considered “the best of times and the worst of times.” I don’t recall much about my response to that one except the main point being: we have a great deal of potential to be living in “the best of times” with scientific advances and what not, but that such potential was rendered null and void when advances were used for less-than-noble causes or when the worthy causes (i.e. treatment for HIV patients, or even basic healthcare) were like pipedreams for the majority of the county’s citizens—due to outrageous costs, etc, etc.

Anyway, the second question was a bit more tangible, though no less irritating to consider: “What is the single best piece of advice you’ve ever received?” For a stagnating 4 or so minutes, the only pieces of advice I could remember having received were, while incredibly practical, not the sort of responses you want to hand in to state-administered essay topics.

The first piece of advice was good for around-the-house matters: “Righty tighty, lefty loosey,” from my friend JD. If you’re unfamiliar with this phrase, it has to do with the direction for turning screws in order to produce the desired effect; I’ve used it many times in the year and a half or so since I learned it. Incidentally, this is close to what an ex-boyfriend deemed the best piece of advice he’d ever received from his father, which was: “Only an idiot screws a screw in too tightly.” Neither of those would have made much of an essay.

The second piece of advice I’ve considered invaluable came from my brother, about 6 years ago: “Beer before liquor, never been sicker…liquor before beer, never fear.” It’s not like I’m a big drinker, which is precisely why—come to think of it—a compact, rhyming, easily-remembered-even-when-already-a-little-bit-tipsy phrase like that has come in so handy—the two-line poem of sorts has more than made up for my lack of experience or marginal street smarts. How many toilet-hugging incidents were shrewdly sidestepped? How many “sick” days carefully preserved for bona fide illnesses? How many embarrassed apologies never uttered? Now, I should note here that there’s room for mention of wine in that little ditty (a point the owner of the wine bar downtown, my friend Nick, and any unfortunate witnesses to an unfortunate incident last winter will verify). Should it be considered liquor? Can it be safely mixed with anything? And what about warm alcoholic beverages like Sake, which just seem doomed for disaster by virtue of their being warm?

It’s not that I couldn’t have written an essay about this advice from my brother…look, I’m writing about it right now. It’s just that I shouldn’t. And I didn’t. What I did was make up a piece of advice that supposedly came from my Dad: “Never fail to recognize the lessons you can learn in the midst of a so-called failure,” or something like that. It’s exactly like something my Dad would say. My Mom, too, for that matter. And it's good advice. But it’s also like something you’d hear in an after school special or even from the Evil Dr. Phil. No matter how good the advice might be, it’s just not all that captivating to write about.

Is it so impossible to imagine that giving test-takers topics that are truly interesting would perhaps produce a better example of their best writing? Wouldn’t you have some pretty exciting responses to a question regarding the best and worst things about your first kiss? How about the shittiest day you remember? The time you walked out on a job and what brought you to that breaking point? What are the three most terrible (and yet true) things your ex-girlfriend could/would say about you? I suppose there are some censorship rules prohibiting the state from printing words like “shittiest” on standardized texts, but maybe it’s time we relax these puritan tendencies a bit.

With the new topics, they wouldn’t have to pay people so much to sit around and read these boring essays all damned day. It would be like a privilege—something they could get Masters students to do for next-to-nothing. Ok, maybe that’s exaggerating, but they sure would be easier to write. And they’d be more reflective of our personalities—isn’t that the most useful information anyway? What if some man’s shittiest day was the one that landed him in jail on charges of 2nd degree murder and racketeering? It might be a slightly better gauge of his appropriate place teaching children than some piece of advice his grandma handed down when he was 11. I guess that’s what the background checks are for, eh?

Just allow me my fantasies for now. I happen to believe standardized tests shouldn’t HAVE to be less fun than an enema.

Loves or Wants to Kill You

2004-01-16T12:01:00.000-08:00

It had been a peaceful bus ride until then—a group of elementary school kids tend to pull one’s attention away from even the most mundane reading (and this was far from—a recommendation from a friend…Chalmers Johnson’s “Sorrows of Empire”…most excellent and disturbing critique of the current administration). I was a little annoyed at the disturbance. But once I decided the reading was a wash, I was happy to sit there and eavesdrop. Kids are so damned cute without even trying.

There were about six of them—third graders, I’m thinking. Loud, loud, loud. There was an elderly man sitting next to two of them, and I initially thought he was lamenting his deplorable choice of seating, but it turns out he was quite taken. The chaperone had told this one little boy that he should tie his shoes so he didn’t trip. The kid made a face and pretty much ignored her. Then the old man said:

“You may not want to, but it’ll make her happy. That’s the reason men do things. There, I’ve let you in on one of the secrets.”

BOY #1: Then you get her heart?

MAN: (laughing) Hey! That’s the other secret!

BOY #2: I already knew both those secrets. I like a girl. She hates me.

GIRL #1: Yeah, and her name’s A-man-da!

(laughter all around)

BOY #2: So?

He looked down at the ground then and smiled a super shy smile revealing two dimples. So stinkin’ cute!!

A conversation ensued regarding what these boys knew about women.

KID #1: Actually, I learned another lesson: girls can talk a realllllly long time.

KID #2: Yeah, and they like to yell.

I thought maybe they were talking about their mothers until Kid #1 chimed in again

KID #1: When I don’t listen to my sisters, I’m a REAL man…I think.

Apparently, the women these boys know just love to scream and fight, cuz

KID #2: The girl I like? She wants to kill me.

I was laughing so hard. Kill him? Goodness! They certainly knew they had a captive audience, so I think this group was perhaps more animated than usual, but then maybe not. If you never spend any time around children, I can tell you it’s worth the strain on your patience (if you're not-so-kid-inclined) just to hear how they interact and try to remember having that kind of outlook.

Things are pretty clear: either a girl likes you back (not bloody likely, in the 3rd grade), or she wants to kill you. Makes things pretty easy, no?

Can you imagine such conversations in the grown-up world?

John: Hey what about that chic from marketing…did you ask her out?

Rick: Naw. I haven’t.

John: Well, what’s your take? Does she like you?

Rick: No, actually, she wants to kill me.

John: Tough luck, man.

I’m calling for all-out, across the board regression, just to simplify matters.

P.S. The kid actually tripped when he got off on account of not tying his shoelace. If men would just listen to women...

[sic]

2004-01-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

“This check cashing place stoled [sic] $85 from me.”

So read the message painstakingly markered on a sandwich board worn by the one-man picket line I saw downtown yesterday. I didn’t stop to get the details; I figured he must have a legitimate beef if he’s willing to stand in the cold and explain his plight to complacent passers-by. And yet I wondered how much that “stoled” was taking away from the serious reception of his message. Or was it just me?

See, I’ve been thinking a lot about language lately.

There’s a sign outside a furniture store near my place of work that advertises a free entry into a drawing for a harly davisons motorclcye, free with every purchased. I have to say there’s something about those and other errors on that sign that make me leery of shopping at that store. A little part of me fears I won’t be able to communicate with the people who work there.

I don’t like that part of me.

What’s that statistic say? That something like 90% of all messages are transmitted and received non-verbally? I’m not sure how They calculate these things in clear statistics like that, but it certainly feels true. So why should poor grammar be such a roadblock for me?

I’ve just begun the process of getting credentialed to teach adult English as a Second Language. This seems a good fit for me—I love language and (just as I enjoy learning other languages) will enjoy helping others communicate better in English. It’s something I’ve been doing informally for a while anyway, and I think what motivates me is my own awareness of sounding like a mentally challenged third-grader when speaking either of my two foreign languages.

Have you ever had a relationship (even a brief one—a.k.a. a fling) in another language? There’s something very frustrating about wanting to say, perhaps, “There’s this look you have that’s very arresting in nature. I feel somewhat off-balance when you look at me like that—like you know something I don’t and would regret knowing if I did,” and instead saying something about the equivalent of “Your face makes me sad.”

So, last summer when I was in Malta and a German acquaintance said things like, “We are having these [zeez] meetings all the [zuh] time in the [zuh] mornings,” I would (at his request, of course, that I help him with his English) explain how and why “we have meetings every morning” is a sufficient and more common way of expressing the same idea.

But then, there are infinitely many ways to convey a message, and aren't the idiosyncratic expressions of second-language learners what make their speech so captivating? Really, is “your face makes me sad” that far off base?

I’ve traveled a little distance, however, from my original point, which was that a few letters can make a big difference in whether or not one’s true intention will be effectively communicated. This idea hit home one day when I was in high school and my Mom, who’s really named Carmelita Konrad, received a letter addressed to Carnekuta Jibrad (say it aloud in a mean voice—it sounds really intimidating). It seems whoever typed the envelope had his or her right hand over to the left by one key [what does your name become? I’m Jusa Jibrad or Losa Lpmrad, depending on in which direction I’m off].

If I were into New Year’s resolutions, I’d resolve not to equate poor spelling and grammar with bad ideas or a lack of intelligence. It’s not like I do this, ultimately, now—but I’m tempted sometimes and I don’t like that. Even if grammatical skills were a true measure of one’s intelligence, it would be, at most, one type of intelligence out of many. Would Nietzsche have needed the ability to spell Nietzsche in order to prove the worth of his ideas? Kahlil Gibran? What of those who don’t even communicate their ideas in words—or more interestingly—their art, their emotions, their music?

It’s a process, though. So if you write me an e-mail that doesn’t contain a single period and says things like “whose comming to you’re party besides myself?” and it takes me a day or two to recover and respond, please forgive me. You can laugh at my ill-fated attempts at baking, my inability to stay in one key while singing, the fact that I can't do a single pull-up, or my complete incapacity to “get” double entendres all you want. I’ll understand.

Glaring Gloppies

2004-01-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

When Kelsi and I decided to find a place together, we had a pretty substantial list of requirements. I won't bore with ALL the details, but we were looking for things like good natural light, a kitchen that opened to other living spaces, a bit of space separating the bedrooms, etc., etc. Our new place meets nearly every requirement, with two exceptions. I'd wanted laundry on the premises and she'd wanted a fireplace. We settled for a bi-weekly jaunt to our most favorite laundrymat and employing the two central heating systems in our apartment. All was good, except, that is, one thing...

...see, there was this pigeon shit to contend with.

Honestly, I didn't really feel the bird shit represented a force to contend with, per se. But my gal Kelsi--when she gets an idea in her head... :)

The thing is that the view from our little dining area is less-than-breathtaking. The many-windowed wall faces a large, Victorian house next door whose adjacent wall just happens(ed) to be covered in the droppings of the two birds who'd made a love nest of the tiny stoop above. Before we moved in, Kelsi mentioned to our soon-to-be landlord and landlady (on separate occasions) that she'd like to have an improved view, and she asked for their suggestions.

The landlady suggested we talk to the owner of the house next door and see if she'd mind our cleaning it. Logical.

The landlord was slightly more, shall I say, proactive (?). In addition to bringing over a large ladder and some kind of high-powered cleaning agent, he (how to say this delicately?) saw to it that the pigeons, well, uh, met with an accident.

Horrible! I know. If I'd known that was going to be part of his solution, I would never have let Kelsi mention it to him.

But anyway, we were then free to clean the droppings ourselves. There was some downtime though...it rained or we didn't have the time or it was dark or we didn't have the cleaning stuff yet. It was during this downtime that I came to understand just how big a stick in Kelsi's spokes this bird shit thing was. There was more than one occassion when I walked out of the hallway to find her gazing disconcertedly out the window at the poo. I'd laugh--I couldn't help it; she reminded me of the grocer in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" who was always driving into the Walmart-like, small business-crushing Food Mart's parking lot and staring up at the big sign, no doubt wondering where he went wrong, what he did to deserve this lot in life. It would take her a second to realize why I was laughing, why I began to fear she was being overtaken with thoughts of these...damned...pigeons (clenched fist, clenched teeth)!!!!!

I'd been thankful for the post-poning rain and for my absense over the holidays because, as you can imagine, scraping bird droppings off high-up places atop rickety ladders is, while ranking high, just not The Highest on my list of fun ways to pass the time. But finally, the rain cleared, the sun came out, we had the cleaning stuff and the time and (50% of us anyway) the drive. I'd kept thinking the problem would take care of itself (an inclination I'd like to blame--as I blame so many of my other undesirable qualities--on my Gemini-ness), but alas, problems don't generally work that way. [Incidentally, when one group of birds meets with an accident, others are happy to move in--just so you and YOUR sniper landlord know]

The day of reckoning came last Friday.

Even as the day was upon us, I tried to delay.
I took an extra long bath in the morning.
I mentioned that maybe, for who knows what reason, the following day might be an even BETTER day to clean bird poop!
I took to a bit of pouting, pointing out how it was my first day off in 7 and blah blah blah.

But that didn't last long. After all, who really wants to look at bird droppings when eating?

I was about 8 steps up the ladder when I realized this was one of those things I'd be telling Kelsi's future children about: "And yet another thing your mama somehow convinced me was a good idea..."

See, I have a serious ladder phobia. I discovered this only after I was hired to work at Pier 1 Imports about 9 years ago, where climbing to the very tops of ladders and flinging huge, off-balanced floor pillows onto and off of shelves overhead is just part of the daily grind. Four years after that and about 10 jobs later I graduated to even taller ladders at Target, flinging even heavier objects like King-sized comforters. Strangely enough, however, ladder phobias don't really go away.

So I did wonder how far I'd have to fall to ensure my spot in next year's "Darwin Awards" book. I can hear Kelsi's quote now: "She was reaching over...see, there was this especially menacing little chunk, a bit yellowish with a big gloppy hanging off... I asked her could she please grab that one while she was up there and the next thing I knew..."

Obviously, however, I survived the ordeal. 'Cept the rain starting down in sheets just as we were folding up the ladders. I was soaked through and through by the time I'd rolled up the neighbor's hose and made quick waste of the newly bio-hazarded scrubbing agents.

I giggled up the back steps, tugged my red, dripping wet Chuck Taylors off my feet, and thanked the universe for yet another ridiculous memory to tuck into the folds of my joyful life.

And I've never quite enjoyed a homecooked meal so much as the blueberry pancakes we shared while gazing out the breakfast nook window at our new, gleaming and glowing, dookie-free wall.

Sometimes, you just gotta clear away the shit.

Reunited (and it feels so good)

2004-01-02T17:58:00.000-08:00

At the kind request of one of my international readers (ok, my only international reader), I've decided to take up my blog again and write for the simple satisfaction of it while trying to convince some-body/company/entity to pay me for my efforts.

So, a lot has happened since I last wrote--since, for example, I forewent the hare-brained idea of making a living in Los Angeles. Den of despair! I shouldn't say that. I know plenty of people who are, in fact, very happy living in the city of would-be angels; I just didn't happen to count myself among them.

As was customary in recent years, I made sure to be in San Jose for the annual jazz festival. My return to L.A. was to happen the following Tuesday, but when that afternoon arrived I found myself physically incapable (or more likely, simply unwilling) to board the lighting-fast, Greyhound bus that was to take me there. San Jose is indeed the place for me.

I pitched a tent in the living room of my dear friends, Nicole and Raul (and Maya too) and set out to find gainful employment, which I found (well, employment anyway) without too much delay. Two months later I moved into a groovy (umm) flat, we'll call it, with my best gal Kelsi, and that brings me about to present.

I'm still looking for the job I went into student loan debt for...the one that would make all the late-night term papers worth the trouble (and that is, of course, the most pessimistic viewpoint...the education WAS worth the effort in its own right...but it will be infinitely MORE worth it when I have the means to begin paying off those student loans, you dig?)

In the meantime I've been back at an old haunt--Barnes and Noble--which is among the most pleasant environments one might find when it comes to working retail. It's especially nice to be working in a Barnes and Noble in one of the most liberal areas of the country, where requests for Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them outnumber those for Bill O'Reilly's Who's Looking Out for You? by about 25-0 and the Evil Anne Coulter's book sits in heaping mounds, growing dusty, under a display table.

And that's the short of it, for now. I'm going to start writing more consistently, sharing some of my favorite public transportation tales of horror, along with other daily observations and embarrassing moments and good news as well.

Hope all is well--whoever you are, reading this, and wherever you might be.

Talking Sandwiches--A Day in the Life: Hollywood

2003-07-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

So I was in kind of a hurry the last couple of times I wrote, and I fear I may have left out some of the juicy stuff.

I’m in Hollywood right now, hanging out with my Bro and trying not to tie up his phone line too much. See, I’m trying my hand at the job market here in L.A., but it seems there’s no such thing as classifieds in the newspapers these days. So I’m doing a lot of looking online, and he’s raised eyebrows at me more than once today alone. Sorry, Bro.

But anyway, I think I have to backtrack a little to Pamplona and the bulls and all that. The thing is that I didn’t actually see any running of any bulls, which is probably a good part of the reason that the experience was such a pleasant one. I think that if I had witnessed anybody getting mangled I probably wouldn’t feel so happy about the whole thing.

But I was there for the opening festivities, and, like I said, the Aussies made it an incredibly exciting experience. I don’t know what it is about those people. It’s as though being an adventurer comes along with Australian citizenship or something. All the Aussies I met abroad were traveling for 6 months or more (some with surfboards under their arms). When I told them that I would be gone for roughly 5 weeks, most of them asked me questions along the lines of, “Why even bother?” They’ve explained to me that Australia is such an isolated country, and it’s so expensive to leave, that they’re gone for long periods of time in order to make it worth the trip.

So I already told about the smelly bus ride (as in, I was smelly because of the caked on eggs and various beverages), and I already told that I visited beaucoup monuments during my stay in Paris, which was brief but pleasant. I could tell you about my stay with my old pal Renee in the Hamptons, but that was just soooooo mellow that I fear I could lull anybody into a pleasant, dreamy siesta just by talking about it.

I’ll just say that Renee’s house is The Cutest and she was The Most Gracious and Entertaining Hostess and the other friends she had staying (a friend of hers from kindergarten and two Swedes) with her for the weekend provided excellent conversation and the whole thing was wonderfully refreshing. Wonderfully relaxing after the whirlwind travels. That is despite the fact that her septic tank burst (or something like that—I’m pretty ignorant about plumbing) while I was there and she spent about 7 hours dealing with getting it pumped by an Emergency Septic Tank Pumping Company. I actually welcomed the waiting-at-home-for-the-guy-to-come-and-do-his-thing thing. That was part of what made the stay so relaxing.

So that leaves me with Hollywood. Oh, but first lemme just advise all readers to avoid Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris like the plague. I arrived 3 ½ hours early and STILL I was running to catch my plane. Nightmare. Part of the thing was that the security inspectors were moving sooooo sloooooowly. I kept getting frustrated while I was watching them from the line because it seemed that they were just chit-chatting with all the passengers; it was like they were flirting or something because they had these smirks on their faces and all the passengers were smiling all goofily while they talked. ‘What IS this?,’ I thought. But when I got to my guy, I realized the people were smiling and laughing because the inspectors’ accents were so strong (accentuated by the fact that they were speaking through smirks for whatever reason) that it was nearly impossible to decipher what they were asking. Example:

Inspector: What do you do to leave?
Me: What?
Inspector: What do you do for to leave?

(I’m thinking well, I packed my bag and checked out of my hostel and then took the Metro to the RER train to the airport shuttle and now I’m here. But I know that’s not what he means. I just can’t figure out what he DOES mean. I answer just to answer something…)

Me: Well, I packed my bag and checked out of my hostel and then took the Metro…
Inspector: To leave!!! What do you do for to leave???!!!!!
Me: Oh, you mean what do I do for a living?
Inspector: Yes, for to leave.
Me: I’m a student. (I lie to make it less complicated)
Inspector: And who pack your bag?

And on and on. But the funny thing was that, at first, the way he asked questions was so unassuming that it almost seemed as though he was just making pleasant conversation, and that he was really interested in my trip, which is the other reason I think all the passengers were smiling. Because he said, “Where did you go on your holiday?” and I thought he was just passing time while he did the official business of checking my passport. So I said, “Well, I was in Italy and then I went down to Malta, oh and then I was in Barcelona and Pamplona and then I came up here to Paris.’ I was about to pull out my pictures and tell him the story of Sea Malta when he started in with the “What do you do for to leave?” business. The whole thing was just kind of goofy but cute somehow.

Not cute enough to overshadow the rest of the de Gaulle nightmare, though, so be warned.

And Hollywood.

It’s only my first day, but I’m just returning to old stomping grounds anyway, so I feel at home. Except that I think there’s a limit to how much one can feel at home in Hollywood. There is definitely an anonymity about the place. And yes, everyone here is trying to make it. And yes, the smog is yucky poo poo. And yes it’s dirty and somehow sad. But something has me drawn here, so we’ll see what happens.

The best thing that happened to me today was that a human sandwich spoke to me. There was this sign twirler dressed like a big sandwich standing on the street corner outside of Subway. When I walked by, he spoke. It seemed to me that that sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed—like talking sandwiches are scarier than they could ever be effective promotional agents, but that’s just me:

Sandwich: Helloooooooo.
Me: laughter
Sandwich: I know why you’re laughing.
Me: A talking sandwich is pretty funny.
Sandwich: Do you want something to drink?

Silliness. I had just had something to drink, so I walked away without answering, but now I’m curious. I mean, did the sandwich have beverages tucked between his folds of lettuce? Was he giving away free drink coupons with subway sandwich purchases?

Maybe I’ll go by tomorrow to kill to boredom that will inevitably come while I wait for responses to my employment queries.

Bottom lines are that I’m back on American soil and safe and mostly happy save for the sad that has come with the end of my fantastic voyage. I’m currently looking into jobs with travel opportunities. The travel bug dies hard like Malta mosquitoes, it seems.

Love to you all.

French for Peep Show

2003-07-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

Well, forget the cello. The cello was cool, but the Running of the Bulls was *****SUPER COOL*****

I mean really super duper amazing...the biggest party and the best time of my life.

I can't write many details right now because

1) I'm in Paris and have slightly more interesting things to do (I just had to get online to book a hostel in New York) and

2) As the parenthetical comments in #1 imply, I'll be home soon enough anyway and can talk about it in-person.

That's right...I'll be back as of Sunday, just 5 short weeks later.

Yes, this is a big time bummer. But I don't have any money left, and the bills and students loans I have back home are looming menacingly overhead. I figure it would be a bit nicer to go traveling again when I can get those things under control and not be worrying about it.

But Pamplona...let me just say a bit about this. It was inSANE!!!! Sooooo many people. Sooooo much fun. Has anybody seen photos of the big square where they kick off the festival every year? You know, the sea-of-red-handkerchiefs-and-near-rabid-with-enthusiasm-Spaniards? Well, I happened upon that square quite by accident and found myself in the heart of the madness. And it was a very invigorating sort of madness. And of course there were the people jumping off that monument (mostly tourists, mostly Aussie tourists at that--the Aussies are ridiculously crazy and great!) and the Sangria a-flowin' and sleeping by the bank of a little river for a half hour total in two nights and the 14 hour busride from Barcelona to Paris afterward (three days, yes three days without a shower covered in the champagne and sangria and beer and eggs that landed on me during the celebrations).

Paris has been quite calm, relatively.

I'm staying in a cute little hostel in the Montmartre area of the city.

Montmartre is French for "peep show."

Just kidding, but there are a TON of peepshows around, though the area is nice otherwise. I saw about 600 monuments yesterday and am about to head out for Round 2 today. Paris is beautiful and ugly at the same time. Kind of like every major city...it's got its attractions mixed with the comfortable littering tendencies of the locals. I can't think of a place I'd rather be at this moment...except maybe Pamplona :)

I leave tomorrow and will be in New York until Sunday, then back to L.A.

:(

Barcelona & the Best Night Ever

2003-07-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just had to make one amendment to my last entry...

It wasn´t the peeling out that finally put things in Malta over the top.

It was the Mormons.

Mormons on Malta!!!!!

But Barcelona, My Oh My!

I arrived yesterday and have decided it is the most beautiful city I´ve ever seen.

Yesterday I saw a Dali exhibit, which gave me a little peek into the brain of certainly one of the most imaginative and eccentric figures of the 20th Century. You know, he had a real knack for depicting avant garde uses for human genitals in drawings. Just kidding. I mean, he did, but the exhibit was much more than that.

Today I went to a garden designed by Gaudi, the famous architect. Another imaginative fellow. There were a house and a few structures in the park that felt like something out of Smurf Village. Well anyway it was dreamy and wonderful.

But last night, I experienced the best moment of my trip thus far.

I was walking through this little alleyway that passes by a really big, really amazing church, and there was a small opening where a solo cellist was playing (with a portable CD player nearby, playing a single piano as accomaniment). The night was perfect (cool and a little cloudy), and the music floated out from the cello, danced mournfully through the air, and approached me with a vivid sort of incredible sort of wondrous sort of hesitance that was haunting and inviting at the same time.

I decided to sit down for a while.

And my reward for staying came in the form of ¨Ave Maria,¨about six songs later. That song gets me EVERY SINGLE time, but most especially last night, alone in a little alleyway on a perfect night in Barcelona, Spain. I decided that that moment alone--even if it would have been the *only* memorable moment during the entire trip--was worth the journey.

There are truly amazing street performers here. Street performing seems less of a way for people to subsist than a venue for really talented people to showcase that talent and make a decent living. The charcoal and pencil portraits the artists do here, in an hour´s time, represent the kind of work they would be paid REALLY GOOD money to produce in the States. And I´ve heard all kinds of brilliant musicians playing all kinds of instruments. It´s difficult to retain the will to continue walking most of the time with all the entertainment to be experienced on the way.

And guess where I´ll be heading the day after tomorrow!!

Guess!!

Guess, I said!!!!

Well, I won´t give it all away (since it seems you reFUSE to guess), but I´ll just say that it has a little something to do with trampling, a little something to do with red, and a lot to do with ludicrous, idiot tourists looking for an adrenaline rush.

I´ve yet to decide if I´ll be running :)

The Most Valiant of Knights in a Sea of Slime

2003-07-02T04:20:00.000-07:00

Godforsaken Island!!!

Yes, yes, the island fever has set in.

I think what finally broke me was the shudders that run up and down my spine each time I hear the sound of a car peeling out. And this is a sound I hear quite often here, at least 10 times/day. Where are they all going? I mean, what's the big hurry?! I think the sound of a car peeling out is my least favorite sound in the whole world.

I'm oh so happy to be leaving for Spain (Barcelona) tomorrow.

But my last few days here have been really, really wonderful and full of the kind of solitude I had hoped to find when I left for Europe without a travel plan. The exception to my solitude came in the form of Nick (whom I hadn't seen much at all during my time here) and a German fellow by the name of Martin who was staying in Nick's guesthouse.

On Nick's last night here, the three of us went to a little bar and then headed down to Paceville (Fuego, specifically)because Martin had been there on Friday and learned that they play real Salsa and Merengue from 3-5 in the morning or so. Well, that didn't exactly turn out to be true on a Monday night, but the three of us were having a good time, Nick dancing sprightly with the goofy, slightly opened-mouth smile he wears when he's very drunk. At something like 4 o'clock in the morning, it began to seem to me that the entire dancefloor was covered with men--horny, eager, squinty-eyed men who seemed not to have seen a female in years of something like solitary confinement. So, lucky for me, Nick and Martin were hovering nearby and were quick to intercede when they sensed I was uncomfortable. At one point they nearly fought with a man who decided that 15 seconds was enough time spent dancing with a woman before it was okay to grab her ass. They were the most valiant of knights in a sea of slime.

After Fuego we decided to take a sunrise skinny dip (my first ever) in the Mediterranean. Wonderful. Martin laughed (well not really, though I sensed he was laughing internally) at me in my prudish Americaness (demonstrated by my unwillingness to remove clothing until actually in the water), but for goodness sakes, the sun was already up, and people were walking their dogs on the nearby strand. Plus, Malta is a pretty conservative, and I'm pretty sure we were breaking the law, so best to be subtle about it, no?

Today I learned that Saad (from the guesthouse) was detained for an hour and a half by the police yesterday because "he resembled a man who was wanted for stabbing a Maltese woman last week." See, if you talk to the Maltese, they will tell you that the only problems with crime here come from the Arab population. And to the Maltese, all Arabs are the same. The Arab population here suffers a kind of racism that I think could be rivaled by the United States maybe 60 years ago or so. Terrible. Saad said he eventually saw a photo of the wanted man in question, and that the only resemblance the two of them bore was their shared black hair and dark eyes. Again, terrible. But at least they didn't beat him like he said they were beating some of the other men (all Arab, of course) being held while he was there. More of the terrible.

I'll be heading to the beach one last time this afternoon. There is an oh-so-groovy little cabana near the local rock beach, where the owner (a curly-haired old hippy with eyes that travel in two different directions) plays music just wonderful to frolic in the water and bathe in the sun to...Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Grateful Dead, U2. Yesterday, I felt spontaneous tears spring forth upon hearing Marley's live version of "No Woman, No Cry." That song ALWAYS gets me, but I don't think it ever made me cry before. Where would we be on this earth without the comfort, the joy, the inspiration, and the sometimes heart-wrenching effects of music?

I'm waxing a little dreamy right now. I'm having one of those moments where I just feel incredibly fortunate to be alive.

And I'm really looking forward to Spain; I feel her reaching her fingers invitingly in my direction.

The Savoy Guest/Halfway House

2003-06-25T03:52:00.000-07:00

As promised, I would like to invite you into the world of the Savoy Guesthouse.

First, a bit about the house itself.

There are three floors and something like 14 rooms. My room is on the second floor, where it's warm, but not as warm as the third floor, so I lucked out. There is a little rooftop terrrace where I can go at night and look at the stars above or the people below. I can also hear, for example, the sounds of neighbors' domestic disputes, and a strange little bird warble I've never heard before. I've yet to see the actual bird, and I think it's more interesting that way.

My room has tile flooring, a double bed, and a window that overlooks a busy street, where there's a crosswalk just perfect for getting killed while crossing (the crosswalk is right at a curve in the street, where cars come a-flyin'). Mine is also one of the few rooms with its own shower, for which I sacrificed having a kitchenette. The kitchenette would have been nice, but I've been grateful for the shower since I realized that a pervy old male resident named Tony likes to check out (up close and personally) the laundry of the women who use the rooftop clothesline; washing and drying my clothes in my private shower has afforded a nice alternative.

There is a common room where people watch T.V.... about 6 channels in Italian, 2 or 3 in Maltese, and one sometimes showing American series (series'? serieses?) in English.

The plumbing, due to the building's age, is, um, a bit of a gamble. Everytime I flush and the toilet actually works, I feel like I've won the lottery. Also due to this temperamental plumbing, I never know exactly what I'm going to find in the toilet, courtesy of the last visitor, who may not have been so lucky with the plumbing lottery. I've had a few frights in this situation, unable to imagine what said non-flusher might have consumed or imbibed the night before to have produced what was left in the toilet for me to find.

The window in my room is best left open at night (as the afternoon sun makes my room pretty stuffy in the late afternoon), but leaving it open means letting in the mosquitos, and I have a very bad relationship with mosquitos. Last week, after declaring an all-out war with one particularly robust pest, I witnessed the emergence of my alter-ego, which was quite disturbing. See, I don't usually kill bugs. I'm more one for ushering them out, or ignoring them. But you know, with mosquitos it's an "us or them" sort of thing--"eat [or "kill" in this case] or be eaten." So I chose "kill." Now, this mosquito had an admirably determined will to live; I had thought I killed it twice, when I saw it land on my bedspread, on my leg. I was just about to turn the light out and go to sleep, so I knew that this was the Moment of Truth. He would have had his way with me all night long. So I moved my hand slowly toward him and threw my hand down in a quick and violent SLAP!! Then (and this is where my dark side exposed itself) I actually uttered the words...

"YES!!! DIE, M@therf*cker!!!"

Mygoonus! Then, in what I'm sure was my universal lesson for the day, I became aware of a warm and throbbing pain coming from my leg. See, I had forgotten, in my focusing on KILLING, that I had a fresh sunburn, and I had struck my leg hard enough to keep me awake with the sore, radiating effects of the slap for another 25 minutes. Tisk, tisk, tisk. We'll work on ushering the little buggers out from now on, eh?

But anyway, enough about my room and my evening death-related activities. I want to introduce you to the players...the Savoy Guesthouse Horror Picture Show. I use "Horror" in jest. There is nothing terrible about my fellow residents (well, most of them, anyway), but they are indeed interesting.

First, I'll start with the house Mamas--two sisters who run the place and who keep everyone reasonably in-line.

The first is Josephine, a buxom sort of Mother Hen with a wicked dry sense of humor. It took my a while to plug into this humor, and a few times I really thought she was upset with me. For example, the other day I was talking with my friend in the common room, and I turned the T.V. off because nobody was watching it (or so I thought). Josephine emerged from her little office, where she had been talking on the phone, and said, "WHO turned off my T.V.?!!!!" I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I did. I didn't think anybody was watching it." She replied with, "Well, I was watching it." Then, looking directly at me with raised eyebrow, she said, "It was an AMERICAN film," and walked off in a huff. A couple minutes later I realized she was joking when my friend pointed out that she had actually been watching the news. But despite her sometimes ambiguous comments, she is clearly a caring woman who always remembers to give messages, never goes snooping through rooms, always remembers to bring a fresh towel, and likes to ask about the plans you may have mentioned having for the previous evening..."How was the jazz?"..."Did you have fun on the island of Gozo?"

Her sister, Lina, is a bit more military-like in nature and is less likely to chew the fat. In the afternoons, she sits watching T.V. with her boyfriend Charles, a red-faced Maltese man who's been living in San Bruno, California for 44 years or so. He comes to visit her every summer and watch T.V. They are both cordial and pleasant enough, though definitely more distant than Josephine. I would never refer to Lina as a "Mother Hen."

But both sisters stir up a mean carafe of instant coffee in the mornings--my choice meal after I fast grew tired of the standard breakfast fare...corn flakes and milk, orange juice, and bread with marmalade. I bought my own wheat bisquit sort of things (called "digestives"(?)) and usually have a few of those as well. Incidentally, I wanted to say a bit about the milk here in Malta because I promise it's unlike anything you've ever experienced. Okay, you know how thick all-fat, Vitamin D milk is in the States? Well multiply that by two, at least. The milk here crawls down your throat at a pace that might make you feel like gagging, or chasing it with something like cranberry juice to clear the canals. But if it's cold enough (which is rare), it can be especially satisfying and take the place of a three-course meal.

But we were talking about the residents...

There's Iris, a young Chinese student studying English here. She has a wonderfully soft and most melodic voice, and when I told her this, she said that she'd studied voice (as in, singing) in China and had trained her voice to be that way. Cool. I asked if she would mind giving me a little concert sometime, which she answered with the words, "Yes, I will sing to make you feel happy." Isn't that awesome?

There are two other young Chinese students who are also studying English but are loathe to actually speak it. The only conversation I had with one of them concerned American movies and basketball, during which the young man (Da) declared his favorites to be "Bread PEE" (Brad Pitt), "SUHdra Block" (Sandra Bullock), and "SHUH-cle OH null" (Shaquille O'Neal). Please understand I'm not making fun of his accent, just trying to give an idea of why I had to strain and stretch my ears in my desire to have a conversation with him. He was nice, but I fear the fact that the two share a room and never leave the guesthouse is keeping them from learning much English while they're here. Da told me that they must pass Standard English exams next month in order to be admitted to the University of Malta. Hmmm. Oh, one other thing he told me was that, growing up in China, one of the few American series he saw was "Growing Pains." It took a while to determine this was the show he was talking about, finally becoming clear when he mentioned a 'Michael' who was always getting into trouble. Turns out Da's dad had always wanted a son more interesting, less shy than Da himself, and continually asked Da why he couldn't have been more like Michael from "Growing Pains" and at least do something interesting once in a while. That broke my heart.

There's an Egyptian man named Mario who brews beer in his room and wears a near-constant scowl on his face. The only time he ever spoke to me, the conversation went like this:

Me: Hello
Mario: Hello [heading up the stairs and then retreating to add to this initial response]. Are you Jewish?
Me: Me? [a line from "The Princess Bride" coming to mind: "Do you always begin conversations this way?" ]
Mario: Yes, are you Jewish?
Me: Do you mean religion or race?
Mario: Religion
Me: No
Mario: But your parents, are they Jewish?
Me: No, I was raised Catholic
Mario: Hmm. [turning, without another word, toward his room]

So. That's Mario, as far as I know him.

There's an older British man and a young Russian girl, neither of whom I've seen enough to have learned their names or anything about their situations.

There's an older Maltese woman named Anne, whose habits and the incredibly lived-in state of whose room would make you believe she's been living in the same guesthouse, piling the same tangerine marmalade on her bread in the morning, for the past 37 1/2 years. In the afternoons, she can be found in the foyer, where she serves as the house's first line-of-defense, or last barrier-to-your-exit, depending on if you're coming or going: "Where are you going?" "To the beach? Which one?" "When will you come back?" "Who are you going with?" "Where did you go?" "What did you do there?" This drives some of the guests absolutely crazy, and I think Anne is reason #1 for Nick's refering to the Savoy as a "halfway house," but the woman is harmless and actually very sweet. She's just a bit inquisitive, which I think is merely due to the fact that she is, I think, somewhat physically unable to leave the house and so lives vicariously through the other residents.

I felt bad the other day because I was sitting near Anne in the foyer when I happened to glance down at her feet and caught sight of her breathtakingly overgrown toenails. I, anticipating that maybe she didn't own a pair of nailclippers and thinking she might like to borrow mine, embarked on this conversation:

Me: Anne, I noticed your toenails are a little long. Do you...
Anne: I know, I know. I'm sorry. I was gonna cut them last night and then I forgot.
Me: No, no, I was just wondering if you needed to borrow some clippers.
Anne: No, I have them. I'm sorry. I'll cut them tonight. I will cut them tonight.
Me: I don't care, I mean, it doesn't bother me. I was just gonna offer you mine.
Anne: No, I have them, but it's just a little difficult for me to cut them.

So then I was thinking maybe she needed help cutting them, and the conversation continued:

Me: Oh, do you need help? I mean, I could help you if you wanted.
Anne: It's okay, and I promise, I'll cut them tonight. I'll cut them tonight.

I felt really bad at this point because I could see that Anne couldn't understand that I was just concerned. She thought that I was disgusted by her toenails and was trying to hint/guilt her into cutting them. The more I said, the more I felt that she was misunderstanding me and that I was making her feel bad. So, I dropped the toenail subject. Now, I've neglected to mention yet that Iris (the young Chinese girl) had been sitting in the foyer also, but she wasn't listening to us; she had been watching T.V. I'm not kidding...five minutes later, during a commercial, she gingerly glanced around the room, looked casually at the two of us, caught sight of Anne's feet, and said (in the harsh and unapologetic way that only English-as-a-second-language speakers do accidentally), "Are you going to cut your toenails?!"

Oh my. The whole conversation started all over again, Anne becoming more and more convinced, I'm sure, that her toenails were an affront to the civilized world.

The next morning, I walked into the breakfast room and the first thing Anne said to me was, "I forgot to cut my toenails again, but I'll cut them tonight. I'll cut them tonight," shaking her head absolutely in betrayal of the fact that she was not only trying to convince me of this intent, but to convince herself as well.

And that's Anne.

Then there are Tony and Eddie, both elderly long-term residents who hover on the edge of eviction every single day.

See, Josephine's problem with Eddie is that he begins drinking at 11:00 every morning and doesn't stop until he's consumed an entire bottle of Auld Lang Syne Scotch Whiskey. His only defense to this beef is to point out that Tony begins drinking at 5:00 in the morning and doesn't stop until he's consumed two entire bottles of Auld Lang Syne Scotch Whiskey. Both arguments are true, and the entire hallway near these men's rooms reeks terribly of sour alcohol breath.

Tony is Maltese, but he lived 44 years in England, where he was married to a woman from India. Tony fled the country when his wife died and her son (from a previous marriage) tried to kill him for attempting to incinerate her body in compliance with her wishes. So he brought her dead body and all to Malta and has been living in something like exile for the past who knows how long, in the Savoy Guesthouse. Now, this lamentable tale might cause you to take pity on the old man, but nay, I say. You should hear the rest first. You might remember my having referred to Tony earlier as the "pervy old man" who checks out women's clothing on the clothesline. Well that's true of him. He is also given to offering hourly work to female guesthouse residents. And he sees absolutely NOTHING wrong with this. On the day he offered this kind of work to me (as if it were some kind of favor), and I became angry and yelled for the first time in I have no idea how long, he asked, very innocently, wherein lied the problem. "It's good money," he reasoned, "Ten Lira per hour."

Ten Lira is roughly 27 American dollars.

Eddie is alternately disgusted with Tony and is his best friend. That afternoon, after Tony had been asked to leave the room, Eddie denounced him as a scoundrel, a truly reprehensible human being, a waste of good oxygen. Moments later, Tony reappeared in the doorway, having forgotten his glass of whiskey. And when he left, Eddie said, "Ok, I'll come see you later."

I throw my hands up.

Eddie is from Pakistan, where he was forced out because of an inability to find work, having suffered from prejudice associated with his being a Christian. He claims to be a palm reader, and has offered to read my palm but failed to deliver on this promise so far. Until now, he's only shared with me that my lucky day is Wednesday, and that things I begin on Wednesday will have good outcomes. Good to know.

Eddie also writes jokes (or joke, as far as I know--so far he's shared the same one with me three times). The example:
A bartender closes his bar and goes home to sleep. A little while later he's awakened by the phone, and the man on the other line asks when he'll be reopening in the morning, to which he answers, "Sometime around 10:00 am." A couple of hours later, the man calls back, wanting to know EXACTLY when he'll be opening, and the bartender repeats, "I told you! Around 10:00." By the third call, the bartender is irate, and when the man asks again for the exact time, he answers with, "You bloody bastard! You've ruined my night! If you're so bloody fond of drinking, why don't you buy a case of liquor and drink it at home?!" The voice on the other end answers, "Look man, I don't drink. I promise. I just came into your bar to use the restroom and now I'm locked inside until you reopen."
Now, it's difficult to find that joke funny more than once. But watching Eddie's face--the way he cracks up at his own cleverness--makes it worth waiting for the punchline.

The other day Eddie tried to pay his rent and Josephine told him to keep his money because she was kicking him out. In a panic, he called Tony downstairs so the two together, whiskey bottles in hands, could brainstorm a solution to this new problem. After a couple of hours of careful discussion and plotting, their answer was to send Tony in to speak to Josephine. Slowly, cunningly, he crept into her office, his lines planned. She took one look at him and said only these two words: "You're next."

Ouch.

But it's not true. They'll probably both die there. I think she just likes to scare them into compliance...she's told me how happy she's been with the silence and the cleanliness of rooms she has observed since she made her threats.

The one guest I've yet to discuss, Saad, refers to them as Tom and Jerry, but we can't really figure out who's who.

Saad is a young man from Morocco who's here to find work. He's full of insane tales about Morocco and what he refers to as "magic." He also talks a lot about "phantoms," which he pronounces "FAWN-tomes," in a way that makes them sound truly scary and almost believable. He claims this magic has been responsible (in his eye-witness experience) for:
* A young man spelling an American woman into falling in love with him, her taking him back to the States where they still live.
* His mortal enemy coming to his house, weeping, and waiting with his mother for three hours until Saad came home, at which time the enemy apologized for all past transgressions.
* Same said enemy coming to and wondering what the hell she was doing in his house, after Saad asked the spell-casting third party to remove the magic.
* A young newlywed being unable to do the deed on the wedding night, thanks to the magic performed by the scores of young bachlorettes in the village who were jealous and angered at his finally getting hitched.
* Same said newlywed impregnating his wife when Saad's magical grandmother intervened with her White Magic, on his behalf.
* A young man who moved to Libya to work being sometimes given to intense and overwhelming desires to return home to his girlfriend, who made a magic paper and tied it to the leaves of a tree so that the magic would make his mind change with the wind.

!!!

It's funny, though...if you listen to him tell these stories, they sound true. Do you think that magic is merely a matter of believing in it? It seems to me that might be a contributing factor.

All in all, these characters have made the stay entertaining and well worth the whopping fifteen bucks a night I'm paying to stay there :)

And that, my friends, is the Savoy Guesthouse. Ya'll stop by sometime, y'hear?

Damned Turks!

2003-06-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

Patience, my friends...I fear this entry will be loooooong. I've had the details floating around in my mind for exactly one week.

Upon arriving at the port in Malta (pronounced MOLE-dtuh by the locals--go ahead and say it aloud; I know you want to), I took a bus to my guesthouse, which sits atop a curvy hill, overlooking, among other things, the nearby Mediterranean Sea), I called Nick to let him know I was here and in good spirits, and he came right over.

Fifteen seconds of greetings later, he asked me if I was ready to go to church.

CHURCH?!

I checked my face and clothing for signs of blantant heathenery, but he explained that it was the first stop on our tour--he had just learned more than a bit about the history of the building and was eager to make me his first victim, er, audience.

And Saint John's Cathedral, in Valetta, was worth the journey. There are 350 valiant knights buried below the marble floor, and the ornate details of the interior (which is well belied by the unassuming exterior) rivaled only Saint Peter's in Vatican City. Okay, indulge me...I have a limited frame-of-reference.

Though I am no longer religious, I have to say that there is something very comforting in being able to attend a mass anywhere in the world and know when to stand, when to sit, and when to sit quietly and brace yourself for a long-winded homily...

In Maltese!

Needless to say, I didn't understand a single word, but the enchanting voices of the choir members (a real choir, which is difficult to find at Catholic churches in the States) reached down and took a firm grip on the innermost knot in the bottom of my soul (I had been wondering where it was (the bottom of my soul, that is...it's good to know).

Then, a walking tour. We checked out the ENORMOUS fortifications built, uh, a very long time ago (sorry Nick, you're a better guide than I am a student) to keep the Turks out. Damned Turks! Always trying to sneak in somewhere.

When you walk up and down the narrow streets of Malta, your shoes make the sound that shoes make in British documentaries. Do you know the ones I'm referring to? In these documentaries, there's some old man, always walking UP a hill for some reason. So between heavy breaths, he says something like (think high British pronunciation), "For the Egyptians, mumification ensured the soul's being kept in-tact during the afterlife," and all the while, he continues to walk and his shoes, on the limestone/sand combination, make a cool kind of crunching sound. Do you have the slightest idea what I'm talking about? Well, the streets of Malta make that sound. When talking to myself as I walk (one of my favorite passtimes), I always have to affect a British accent; it seems so apropos.

But, of course, one needn't walk everywhere. There are busses...if you dare, mwah ha ha. Well, actually, the busses themselves seem entirely safe. The problem is me. See, they drive on the left here, and I've been nearly killed at least a half-dozen times. Guess my learning curve is less-than-optimal.

The busses are relic "gifts" from England, many of them dating from sometime in the 1950's, chrome fenders and all. Their interiors are best described using a phrase I don't think I've ever uttered in my life: A real hoot. There are religious stickers plastered all over the front dashboards and window panelings (many featuring images of a glowing Virgin Mary and the like). Some of the more modern-looking stickers read things like "Think GOD," or "Jesus Loves Me," but the most intriguing one so far read "I Love Safely." Now, I don't know if this was a typo, meant to say "I Love Safety," or if the driver of the bus was especially careful about the way in which he loves and wanted to make sure all his passengers knew this about him (in my feeble understanding, public transportation is handled in a private-contracted sort of way--each driver owning and (sometimes) caring for his own vehicle), but anyway that's what it said.

Which brings me to the language discussion.

As I wrote before, English is one of the two official languages here (three cheers for British Imperialism and the Knights of Saint John), but that doesn't remove the possibility of encountering some idiosyncratic discrepancies.

My favorite sign so far reads "Andrew's Beefy Crunch." I've never seen the establishment open, but I'm eager to find out what exactly is sold there.

Another, written on the side of a mini-bus, read, "Stuff Your Jealousy." Okay, I'll get right on that.

A shirt worn by a local man: "International Delivery."

The Maltese speak with a charming accent that sounds like a combination of the accents you would here from native Arabic and native Spanish speakers, which is fitting considering the island's location.

The worst thing I can say about Malta (which is a relatively welcoming place, otherwise) is about the service, which is probably the worst I've ever encountered (seriously, you thought Original Joe's was bad!) I don't know if this is owing to a general and overwhelming annoyance with tourists or the effects of the weather (oppressive sun with a healthy dose of wet--wet air, not actual rain), but SOMEthing has crawled under the skin of every person in the service industry here (and, I suspect, laid eggs).

An example: The other day I was sitting at a cafe, writing in a notebook, when my server (an elderly and sour-faced man) came to take my plate away. I realized, as he was taking it, that my notebook had been resting in the ketchup on the plate's edge. I made an "Aww" kind of face...as in, "how unfortunate," which he misinterpreted as my assigning some kind of blame to him and to which he responded by pointing an extended forefinger in my face, followed with the words, "It's YOUR fault!!"

Hot Damn!

But, as cultural differences can be charming, I've found eliciting a smile from a server to be a challenging and, when successful, gratifying way to pass the time.

And speaking of food (because we kind of were), I'll share what I've learned of it so far. Well, they have rabbit (stewed), rabbit (fried), and rabbit (baked). The end.

Kidding of course, though rabbit is a favorite when it comes to local cuisine. Unfortunately, it seems the Maltese (probably having something to do with the British occupation I referred to earlier) suffer from a bit of an identity crisis. It is difficult to determine what true Maltese culture is all about. So, my choice vegetarian option is chips and egg (how much more British can you get?), followed by couscous and pita bread from the Istanbul Kebab joint near my guesthouse (I guess some of those Turks snuck through after all). And then, there's (surprise, surprise) McDonald's, Burger King, and Pizza Hut. The notable menu item in a Maltese McDonald's: salad with fresh tuna or shrimp. And Italian gelatto has meandered its way here, as well...

There IS a God!

And now for the best thing I can report about Malta: It is--by far--the safest place I have ever been. Locals and tourists alike muse about the fact that anybody (man, woman, child) can walk down the dark, deserted streets at any time of the night and feel completely at-ease.

Do you think it has anything to do with the absence of a National Rifle Association?

Naaaaaa.

Really, though. It's a nice change from the dagger-like sideways glances I had grown accustomed to throwing during my stay in Rome. Oh, and while I'm thinking about Rome...I wanted to remove any remaining doubt about my being a bona fide freak from the minds of my friends and family members, by making a side-by-side comparison of....drumroll please....

Body Odor!!

Now, the overcrowded busses and Metro of Rome afforded me with countless opportunities to (connoisseur that I am) take a whiff, sampling the smells of Italy (or, Italians). Assessment: pleasant, in that horse maneur kind of way. You know what I mean? How B.O. can sometimes be not-so-bad? My friend Nicole (thanks to lessons learned in her Human Sexuality class) would point out that our attractions to another's sweat smell has something to do with the likelihood of that person's immune system, coupled with our own, producing offspring with healthy immune systems (ain't that cool?). Assessment of Maltese B.O.: more offensive. Is it the proximity to the salty sea air? I don't know, but the smell is very bitter, most unwelcoming. So, my belief in this immune system thing has been thrown into doubt. I mean, it couldn't be that I would produce healthy offspring with EVERY single Roman...afterall, the women have this smell, too. And there's no way my coupling with any native of this island would result in weak little sicklings. Or is there?

But anyway.

I fear I haven't really given a good description of this place. Where to go from here?

On the boat here, I was told that Paceville (PAH-chuh-vill), the local hot spot here, offered the best nightlife to be found in the modern world. Though I'm not really one for "nightlife," I figured I'd check it out, especially after I learned there was a Salsa club. After days of loafing around in the sun, I was eager to expend some energy.

So.

Paceville.

Paceville is a nightmare.

Well, I suppose that if I were 17, or drunk, or eager to spend too much money to go to a club exactly like any club I could find in the United States, it would be quite a thrill. But since I'm none of the above...

I went to the Salsa Club (Fuego, it's called), and was happy when I entered and heard a merengue song, followed by a salsa. But then, suddenly, the tides turned, and the next 6 songs were (sometimes) in Spanish, but with nothing even close to a salsa beat anywhere to be found. Most were just overlaid with a thump, thump, thumping just perfect for losing your mind to. I guess that's the idea. Oh, and a resident of the guesthouse where I'm staying had kept mentioning to me a song that had the words "Life is life" as the main chorus. "Life is life?," I asked, "What does that MEAN? That doesn't mean anything." I heard that song that night..."Life is life," and apparently it's quite popular, because after the "Life is life" part, the DJ would turn down the volume and, in one loud voice, the entire contents of the club would yell "La la la la la," the rest of the chorus. Is this a local phenomenon, or is my ignorance, like a poorly hemmed slip, showing again? Please, if anybody knows anything about this, do set me straight.

Ah, but last night, in a wonderful stroke of luck, I discovered the local jazz club. It sits underground in a sultry, red little room that seems like some sort of a secret, and like--among the patrons--there should be real live beatniks or maybe Boris and/or Natasha. Sadly, they only have jazz on Thursdays, but I'll be sure to be there.

As for daylife, I have only the beach to offer explanation of, but the beach is enough. The great thing I can say about the beaches in Malta is that all are welcomed with open arms...big'uns, lil'uns, all types, all sizes, all in bikinis (well, the women anyway). They are far less body-conscious here, and it was incredibly refreshing to see old and young, thin and not-so-thin, tawny bronze and ghostly white and beet red, all enjoying the sun as it should be enjoyed. And the Maltese children, splashing and sand-castle-building and running and screaming, are especially nice to watch.

Though eating and entertainment are comparably priced to the U.S., accomodations are cheap, so I've decided to stay a while before heading to Spain. My purchases so far include the obligatory sarong (only $6 here, compared to the $15-20 you'd pay at, say, the Jazz Festival) a sun hat (which I bought from the Maltese version of a dollar store--awesome!), and a traditional henna hand tatoo.

Despite bad service and yucky nightclubs, life here has treated me well. Next time I write, I will tell all about the cast of characters at the Savoy Guest House, a motley crew of folks so strange at times that, in hearing the reports, Nick (in the classist and superior manner for which he is known) has taken to calling "Halfway House" rather than "Guest House" residents. Our differing attitudes about what is "uncivilized" and what is simply interesting and quaint, has resulted in a general happiness (in both of us, I think) about the fact that our respective hotels are located on different parts of the island. :)

La La La La La.

I wish you all well.

Sea Malta

2003-06-16T02:03:00.000-07:00

Last I wrote I had just been to the Collosseum and Vatican City. Three things I can say about those places:

1) Breathtaking (seriously, I haven't breathed in like 5 days).
2) Big (really really really big).
3) Germans! (Soooooo many Germans).

I'm summarizing of course. I'll just have to share the pictures and tales in detail when I get home. Where is home, anyway? I was thinking about this. I have no place to live, no job, nothing tying me to anywhere. Maybe I'll flip a coin and pick a city when I get back to the States. But anyway, back to Italy...

I was gonna scrap my plans to see Malta the day I left Rome, but then I got an e-mail from my friend Nick, who was down there, so I decided to check it out.

Well, that was the easy part.

First, I decided to buy a train ticket to Reggio di Calabria, in the very south of Italy. It seemed like a port city and was about as close to Malta as I could get. There were many trains leaving, but most of them arrived late at night. So I decided to take an overnight train and get there in the morning.

Leaving me with 10 hours more in Rome.

Oh, but first things first---I couldn't use my ATM Visa card at the train station. Turns out there was a fraud alert placed on it. Apparently a sudden 2-Euro purchase at a grocery store in Rome causes some alarm. So I got that straightened out first.

I ran into a tourist office employee named Amadeo, who offered to show me some more sights. I'm pretty sure this was not part of his job; I suspect he may have been hitting on me under the guise of "helpful tourist office employee," but he wasn't imposing or shifty or anything. So I took a crazy busride with him to the Fountain at Trevi, The Spanish Steps, a charming little square called Campo di Fiori, and the Pantheon.

I really don't think I can describe accurately how enchanting it felt to be amidst so much history. So, so, so beautiful. Like I said, we'll have to talk over a slide show in the future.

But right across from the Pantheon, in the same little square, sits a McDonald's. Sick. Really sick. But I peaked in at the menu and saw a colorful picture of a salad with ripe red Roma tomatoes and chunks of Mozzarella cheese on it. When in Rome...I guess.

Amadeo (along with every guidebook I'd consulted) warned me not to fall asleep on the train if I wanted to have my luggage in the morning. Ok. I lucked out an ended up in a car with 4 natives of Reggio di Calabria--one young girl, one crazy old man (I'm not just saying that--even the other Italians exchanged "this old guy is crazy" looks. I had to pay close attention to these things because I was now entering the region of Italian-only speakers--body language is everything. That and cherades.), and one young married couple. None of them seemed eager to rob anybody, and I was sitting far from the passageway (where the thieves roam, I suppose), so I felt safe.

The young married couple was in a fight all night, though, which made me a little sad and uncomfortable. See, it wasn't a vocal, let's-have-it-out-and-be-done-with-it fight. I mean, it couldn't be: there were four other people in the room. It was a slow, quiet, awkward, man-touches-knee-of-woman (apologizing and speaking in hushed tones), woman-gives-man-the-cold-shoulder-and-faces-the-window, man-gets-up-and-paces, woman-pretends-she's-asleep, man-comes-back-to-seat-and-tries-again, woman-gives-the-evil-eye, etc., etc. kind of fight. They were friends again by the time we stepped off the train, but still, I was feeling for both of them for the first 6 hours of the ride.

So then. 7:00 a.m. Saturday. Reggio di Calabria. I asked a woman at the train station how to get to Malta (figuring people there must go to Malta all the time), and she sold me another train ticket. I figured this train must go to the port (the ticket was only 1Euro).

I was wrong.

When I figured out I was wrong (luckily, before I actually boarded the train--turns out there's a very nearby town called Malta), I asked her how people get to Malta, the country. She referred me to the travel agency.

Closed. It was Saturday--who would be traveling or making plans to travel on a Saturday? Lesson 1 regarding the south of Italy.

But Reggio was quiet and wonderful, so I wouldn't have minded staying at all. I did want to get to the port, though, just to know what my options were.

And here's where it gets interesting...

I found the bus to the port, which looks nothing like the kind of port where anything other that huge containers of things would be shipped from. I certainly didn't see any family members waiting around to greet arriving passengers. It was something like Long Beach Harbor, but smaller.

There I was referred to a dim, dingy little office where the man in charge of "Sea Malta" was sitting, smoking a cigar. I know, it sounds like a movie, but this whole sequence felt that way for me, so it's fitting.

He told me that "Sea Malta" was a cargo ship, and that I could maybe take it to Malta, but that the priority passengers were Maltese truck drivers and the space was limited.

Don't freak out, Ma. I promise it all turned out well.

He said to come back at 1:00 in the afternoon to find out if there was room for me. The other option was to take a passenger ship the next day that arrived in Malta at 2 in the morning. Whatta dilemma!

I spent a few hours roaming around and trying to communicate with the incredibly friendly people of Reggio di Calabria. Then back to the port.

The man said that there was room, and he took my 55 Euros (roughly 75 dollars or so), along with my passport. He made a copy of the passport, but when I asked for it back, he said I'd get it back later. I squinted and thought about it, and when no female intuition alarms went off, I said "ok," and left. The boat was leaving at 7, and he said to be back by 5. So I went back into town and drank some sort of coconut drink, wrote a quick e-mail to Nick, and went back to the port.

At 3:30 I went back to the office, which was then closed. I wasn't that surprise, since he had told me to go directly to the ship, but this was a crucial sort of moment.

Here I was, walking along this port with my big backpack, sweating like a madwoman. These were my thoughts:

Random American girl, really out-of-place in a quiet cargo port.
Extreme south of Italy.
Speaks no Italian.
Gave a stranger her passport and 55 Euros.
Trusts that the man really does have something to do with this ship.
Trusts the ship really is going to Malta that evening.
Trusts they'll let her on the ship.
Trusts nothing bad will happen to her on the ship.
Trusts she'll get her passport back.

Needless to say, I felt a little apprehensive.

When I got to the ship, there were nothing but men standing around all over the place. They looked at me like I was a leprechaun. I suppose I seemed a little out-of-place to them, too. I picked the one who looked closest to my age and asked him what to do (hand motioned, really) if I was supposed to take that ship. He pointed to the steps and told me to get aboard.

"Okaaaaay. Grazie." (Said, turning slowly toward the ship with raised eyebrow)

Imagine my relief when, walking up the rickety steps, I noticed a 40's-something blonde woman on board. I spoke to her and her husband, and all my fears dissolved instantly. She was from Sweden and her husband from Malta, and their 18-year-old son was there, too. She said they take the boat all the time, and that it's very safe and I'd have my own sleeper room with a lock and the use of a shower, dinner provided, and breakfast in the morning.

It was all true.

There were only 3 actual truckers on board, and they were the friendliest people I'd met so far. We all (the truckers and the family and I) had dinner together (pasta, the best food I'd eaten since I arrived), drank wine, and told stories (they all spoke English--English is one of the two official languages of Malta), and I had the soundest sleep I'd had in a week. It was a random, rare, and beautiful experience.

The Mediterranean, glowing under the light of a near-full moon--just imagine.

And it turns out they needed to hold onto the passport for the Maltese customs agents to have a gander at when we arrived.

So, like I said... Hi. I'm in Malta.

And more on Malta later.

For now I'll just say that everybody should try to make it here at some point. It's a gem of a place, and a pretty well-kept secret (except from the Germans--they seem to have found out about it :)

I'm off to collect my laundry, and then to the beach.

Greetings to all my friends and family. I miss and love you all. And I'm still the happiest girl in the world :)

Testing

2003-06-16T01:53:00.000-07:00

Hi.

I'm in Malta.

I had to say it like that because reporting this news reminds me of that scene in Wayne's World where Wayne and Garth are playing with the blue screen: "Hi..I'm in New York. I've got a gun, let's go to a Broadway show." Then they're in Texas and I think Hawaii and, all of a sudden, Delaware. And Wayne says, "Hi. I'm in Delware."

Now, I'm not saying it reminds me of that because Malta is boring or anything (quite the contrary--it's amazing), but just because who knows anything about Malta? Really, I mean, I didn't know anything about it before...Maltese falcon? Maltese is a kind of dog? What else? I was talking to somebody here who used to play on Malta's national futbol team, and he said that when the team was playing in New York, the chant that the U.S. fans liked was "Where the hell is Malta?!"

Anyway, I'll get back to Malta later...first, some back-tracking.

I'm going to post this first, though, just to be safe.

Boooo!

2003-06-13T02:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I just wrote a half hour's worth of my continuing adventures, and it all went away--disappeared into the netherworlds of cyberia.

Poopie Poopie.

I'll do it again soon, but I don't have the wherewithal right now, so I'll just give a brief summary:

Still in Rome.

Saw the Collosseum

Saw Vatican City (mmm, saw Michaelangelo's "Pieta," which made me cry)

Saw a free concert of Two Tenors outside the Collosseum last night, which will be aired on PBS later this month

Leaving today, destination yet-to-be-determined

Am the happiest girl in the whole world :)

I wish you all well on the homefront!

Bed & Breakfast, Hold the Breakfast

2003-06-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Where to start? At the beginning...

One of the last things I said to my friends at the bus station in San Jose was that I was tired and hoped I didn't end up sitting next to a "talker." Well, in perfect universal irony, the young man who sat next to me pulled out a little device on which he typed a message to me: "Hi, I'm Nick. I hope it's okay that I sit here. I'm deaf...have you ever used one of these devices [referring to the thing he was using to type]?" I should have been more specific; should have said "communicator," but all in all it was good. We talked on that thing, and two hours later, I made an attempt at sleep, but it seems I can't sleep on moving vehicles these days.

So I spent a few days with my brother in Hollywood, which was great. Last Friday night he was honored on the field at Dodger Stadium for his perfect usher attendance (and his dashing good looks). I arrived roughly 8 seconds too late to see his 30-foot mug displayed on the Diamond Vision screen, but it was cool all the same.

After a few days of playing with him and his Super Cool group of friends, I set out for my adventure.

Sunday night: no sleep on an overnight flight to New York.

Monday: eleven hours wandering in midtown Manhattan. Nice.

Monday night: no sleep on an overnight flight to Rome.

First lesson in Italian men: don't trust Italian men who warn you about Italian men. I was talking to this man while waiting to board. He lives in San Diego and was returing to Rome to visit his parents. Well, that was his story anyway. He was warning me about the men here (I'm writing from Rome) and how they will tell you anything and blah blah blah. As we boarded, he was telling me about the perfume he bought for his mother. A few minutes later, he brought up the perfume again (one called 'Paris'), and when I told him that I didn't know anything about perfume, he said, verbatim, " I don't usually buy the new one, but sometime my wife, I mean, no my wife, my mother...she like to..." I didn't hear the rest because I had walked away at that point. When somebody lies to you within the first 4 and a half minutes of meeting, I figure it's a good idea to move on.

So. Rome. This morning I thought I lost my purse first thing upon arriving. I was ready (sleep-deprived and a little nervous anyway) to pack up and head home. Turns out I left it on the plane.

So I'm staying then :)

It's true about the Vespas...those and other kinds of scooters are everywhere. It's pretty charming.

It's true about the Italian men, though I haven't found them particularly threatening or anything. And Rome is just teeming with handsome fellas. But then I've always liked the dark, curly-haired types anyway.

I had a long non-conversation with an elderly German man outside a cafe over my first cafe latte (which was everything I dreamed--the latte, not the non-conversation). Lesson learned (I don't speak German and he didn't speak English, Spanish, or French...neither of us speak Italian): European phrasebook is next to useless.

Now, it's time to get some sleep. I'm curious about the hotel in which I'm staying. It's called "Bed and Breakfast" (the hostels were full). The man showed me the room and told me about the keys and the bathroom, and when he was fixin' to leave, I asked him how to go about breakfast. His reply was "Oh...we don't serve breakfast; it's just called "Bed and Breakfast." I repeated: "You're called "Bed and Breakfast" but you don't serve breakfast?!", which he answered with an apologetic shrug and a promise to bring me some coffee and juice in the morning. At this point I'm sort of wondering if it really is a hotel at all :) As far as I can tell, mine is the only room there. Hmmm.

In summary, so far, so good. But Rome is expensive. I think I'll be leaving for some quieter, less touristy realms tomorrow. Hope everything is great on the homefront.

2002-08-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have moments during which I have the distinct feeling that I could love the entire world. I’m not talking about a hippie kind of we’re-all-connected-I-have-love-in-my-heart-for-everybody thing (although I mean that, too). I mean that I think I could fall in love with every single person I meet. How to explain this?

I know it’s probably sounding like a drug-induced sort of feeling, but it’s not. It’s actually usually a music-induced thing…live music in particular. I remember watching all the listeners and dancers at the Salsa stage during the jazz festival a few weeks ago and thinking to myself that this was the most beautiful group of individuals that had ever been gathered in one place. The thing is that it’s the most beautiful group of people EVERY SINGLE TIME, no matter who the people are, what kind of music it is, or where it’s all taking place. So, that said, I think it must have to do with the joy to be found in watching people let go and allow themselves the pleasure of abandon (“Let your mind go and your body will follow”).

I was trying to describe the feeling to my friend while we watched the salsa dancers. It’s like the music and the dancing reaches a sort of fevered frenzy, and when I look around it seems that every movement, every smile, the little beads of sweat forming on the surface of somebody’s sun-browned arm – it’s all frozen in time – little snapshots of euphoria, and there’s me standing or dancing nearby, trying to soak it all in and remember every single detail for future reference.

It’s at those moments when all I can see are awe-inspiring scenes everywhere, in every direction I turn: ‘that man has eyes a color that strikes me to my very soul.’ ‘the way that woman moves in her hip-hugging skirt and midriff top makes me feel like, if I touched her (even just accidentally brushed against her briefly), I would melt at her feet.’ Thoughts like these go through my head, and I find myself wishing against all hope that the music would never end and that there were, indeed, time enough in one person’s life to love everybody up close. I want to hear all their stories. I want to know them all and touch them all and be invited to their families’ houses for Thanksgiving. I want to read their diaries and look at their bookshelves and ask them all about their third grade teachers. I want to know what they’re most afraid of, and if it’s something of this world I want to go out and conquer it with them. “Sky diving? Let’s go next Saturday…we’ll have ‘em drop us somewhere over the Salinas Valley and we’ll see the amazing hills that Steinbeck spoke of, only as birds do, instead of humans.”

I think this all sounds kind of selfish…me here, wanting it all. But it’s just that there is so much to love out there, and what seems like an unfair amount of time in which to love it. If the universal waitress asked me what I was having, I'd answer that I wanted seven courses of life and an extra side of childhood (for good measure), plus a glass full of water from the Fountain of Youth to drink.

Somehow, though, I know I'd still be hungry.

2002-08-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

What is with these overcast mornings? I feel like I'm living in L.A. again. And that's a bad, bad feeling.

Not really. I actually feel pretty good, which I think is partially due to the fact that I returned to old stomping grounds last night...Cafecito's Open Mic...the grooviest place to be on a Monday or Thursday night. For anybody who doesn't live in San Jose or hasn't been to this place, I'll break it down. There are two different house bands that play at these open mics (both jazzy/funky), and they play in-between hearing from various musicians and poets (and sometimes freestyle hip-hop artists), all of whom are very talented. It used to be free, but most of the people there are students and I think they weren't buying any coffee or something because now it costs two dollars, but it is well worth the money. Going there is definitely a natural high (and necessarily, too...they don't sell alcohol, which is beautiful, because you get to see how amazing and expressive people can be all by themselves - without anything helping them reach another state of consciousness but their own talents). The performers are all very socially conscious and have so much positive energy to share that it always contagious. I'd been away from there all summer (obviously), but I also didn't make it all last semester because in my mind I was too busy. But that's bullshit. I could have made it if I would have just made the effort. And I pledge to this semester, because I think that if I don't allow myself that sort of outlet, I'm gonna go crazy. I just mapped out my schedule like a high school freshman because, between six classes and seven 1 1/2 hour sections of tutoring in the school's writing center (my new job), I know I'm gonna have a hard time remembering where I'm supposed to be at any given time.

I feel it...I can actually feel the freedom dripping out of me :) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......................................

2002-08-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the last time I started doing this I experienced one of those horrible computer-crashing-out-of-nowhere things and lost it all (again!), but I'm trying my luck now because I wore a summery dress today in order to make the sun come out from behind ugly grey clouds out and it worked, so I figure I'm magic today and magic people don't have computer crashes (do they?).

It's been roughly a week and a half since I returned to San Jose and I'm oh so happy to be back! I realized I missed ALL of it...all of the lovely, as well as the yucky (including, but not limited to: endless passing of cars all night right outside my window, many of them with thumping bass, pigeons (which I don't think exist in Colorado) and the ridiculousness of signs reading things like "Historic House Moving" as a euphemism for the mayor's heartless uprooting of really old houses with long-time residents in order to make room for the new city hall which will ensure his legacy). Yes, the city is a beautiful thing - as was the Jazz Festival (Salsa Stage, most especially), and the GREAT show I saw the other night at Plant 51 - an Ozomatli-esque group of fine, talented young men who call themselves the B-Side Players.

But there was business to take care of, too. I got a job in the writing center at school, which sounds like it will be challenging, and challenging is good. However, beyond the job, three weeks worth of laundry to contend with today, and the business of hanging out lazily in coffee shops catching up with friends, I've been exquisitely, thankfully, and pleasantly idle.

One can never be quite so idle without feeling a slight bit of guilt (if the "one" is me, anyway), so I decided I had to get some good reading in before school starts and I have to read what THEY tell me to read.

I decided to start with Camus' "The Stranger," which had shamefully sat unnoticed on my bookshelf for who knows how long. You know how you grow up your whole life hearing about books and movies that are supposed to be the Be All End All of books or movies....and then you finally get the chance to watch, say "Gone with the Wind" and you're all, "Wha?" "What the hell is so great about THIS movie, book, etc.?!" You know what that's like?

Well, "The Stranger" is nothing like that.

This is a book that has earned its place on the imaginery list of must-read books that might not necessarily be in THE CANON, per se, but everyone knows that you're supposed to have read them (The Canon, what a bunch of phony-balonieness that is, by the way). For any of you who haven't read it, this book is said to epitomize existential philosophy and all that jazz. I would normally be opposed to a work of fiction that attempts to present such a huge philosophical or spiritual idea ("The Celestine Prophecy" drove me nuts for that reason!) because if it's something as important as a philosophy about life, I'd prefer for authors to just come out and say what they mean, you dig? But this is the exception, and I'm not sure why, maybe just because it's so well-written.

Check this out: (the speaker is getting used to his new life of incarceration after having committed a murder) "Afterwards my only thoughts were those of a prisoner. I waited for the daily walk, which I took in the courtyard, or for a visit from my lawyer. The rest of the time I managed pretty well. At the time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowering overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it. I would have waited for birds to fly by or clouds to mingle, just as here I waited to see my lawyer's ties [the lawyer wears ugly neckties] and just as, in another world, I used to wait patiently until Saturday to hold Marie's body in my arms."

I love that passage. Anyway, what's interesting about the story is that the plight of poor Meursault (the story's main character) is presented in such a way that you can hardly blame him for his actions (for which he is ultimately sentenced to death), and you find yourself thinking like an existentialist (sympathizer, at the very least). In reading, I could see how society was constantly trying to impose a morality on the character based on the (unproven) idea that there is a god and that life holds some kind of deep meaning (if only in-reference to an afterlife). It's interesting, really. Meursault was only being honest, and yet nobody would believe that he put his mother in a nursing home or was able to kick up an affair with a woman the day after his mother's death, simply because he felt they no longer had anything to say to each other (he and his mother) and that he was ready to move on in his life. Only evil people behave with such utter absence of humanity, so they said.

I would like to think that I would have given young Meursault the benefit of the doubt, if I had known him in real life. But I knew a man just like that once, only he was named George, and really, I just thought George was an asshole. I would like to have the chance to know George now, though, because I would like to think that I could let him live his life and think in his way and not internalize everthing (which is usually what the problem is - internalizing - when people can't just let others live and have their opinions without taking issue with everything). And not that I advocate rampant murder or anything, but there are degrees of personal freedom, free of judgement, that I think humans should be entitled to.

Yeah, so, reading. That's been good. I've since nuzzled up with Kerouac's "Big Sur" for the second time around...if only for the pure pleasure of reading frenzied words put together in the strangest and yet most satisfying of ways.

One more week until school starts...I'm trying to soak it all in and slowly savor it...lick, instead of bite my way to the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop.

2002-08-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

Packed, mentally and (almost) emotionally detached from Colorado, ready to come home. I'll be on the train as of 9:00 tomorrow morning, that's about 11 hours away, and I am quietly content.

The beginning of the rest of my life awaits me...I can't wait to get started......