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pick me ups Friday, April 19, 2002 Liz and I just came up with a new pickup line, "Hey, have you seen the ceiling in my apartment?" Much better than my, "Bottoms up ... literally!" But still not quite as good as old classics "Do you mind if I end this sentence in a proposition" and "Is that a fox on your shoulder or am I seeing double?" + + + + + + + + + + + + + Dreamy! This past week, I dreamt that a) I met a talking panther, and scratched his head. "This is what MY kitty likes," I said. "That does something weird to my ass," he said. And, b) That I went to get "Born to Kiss" tattooed on my neck, but they typoed "Born to Kill" instead and I was unable to get it fixed because I couldn't figure out what font they'd used. Possibly related: I gave up coffee! I started yoga! (I'm now one of those people you see walking down the street, all blissed out in comfortable clothing and slide-on shoes, carrying the ubiquitous rolled mat, who you just want to pinch, pinch, pinch!) I have soy milk in my refrigerator! And vegetables! On deck: Menstruate with the moon, purchase a loom, hemp. + + + + + + + + + + + + + Breathing Lessons It's a weird feeling, not being able to breathe. For a while I thought that it was just that my new bra was too tight (or, less exciting, that it was straining against a surprise extra layer of back fat). I kept tugging at the reinforced fabric at the front, stretching it out and away from my chest to talk. Then I resorted to pulling the underwire up and over above my nipples and just leaving it there. For days I walked around like that, my bra cooling on top of my rack, but even then, I couldn't manage to catch a true, deep breath. On day four, my thoughts turned to a friend's collapsed lung, how, before his big operation, he had thought it was just gas and kept pounding his chest, trying to burp, and when that didn't work, standing on his head with hopes that the discomfort would bubble out his soft end. I was tempted to call my doctor, but I felt that last year's complaint (which dove-tailed so nicely with my father's triple bipass) about how my heart was beat, beat, beat ... BEATing, and the ensuing trip to the abrupt Russian EKG nurse -- who said nothing but "Take your top off" ("Maybe that was her name," a friend suggested later) then covered my back and chest with pads attached to little wires that lead back to a large machine, which looked an awful lot like that whirring, blocky computer on Wonder Woman, and printed out a strip of paper covered in rhythmic spikes that proved me to be perfectly normal -- had maybe labeled me a wolf-cryer. So I called and asked my friends for advice. Maybe it was allergies, Jill thought, though yes it did sound somewhat like asthma. "What if I took hit off your inhaler, just to see?" I wondered, "Or would that be too intimate?" Jay thought it might be stress, "but I feel fine," I insisted, "totally relaxed!" My friend Liz, who's one thousand months pregnant, agreed that it might be fluid in my lungs, but then talk turned to the contractions she'd been experiencing off and on all weekend, how the baby's head was now to the side and well below her cervix, and the labor-inducing merits of nipple-stimulation, and somehow I never got a chance to mention my new idea that I was perhaps experiencing some sort of sympathetic Lamaze "breathing awareness." I pitched the idea to my other friend Liz, and she said simply, "I think that you're going to be really embarrassed that you didn't call your doctor if it turns out you're dying," which had a certain, ringing truth to it. I put a call in to the Pacific Medical Center and promptly dropped into a voicemail labyrinth. Once I finally got a beep, I answered with an airy message about hoping to get an appointment so someone could, maybe, tell me that I wasn't dying, followed by lots of heavy breathing. My favorite nurse practitioner called me soon thereafter and yelled at me for leavng such an alarming message so late on a Friday afternoon, but calmed down once we determined that "the pain in my leg" I had mentioned was the dull ache of a muscle pulled on the trotter at the gym and not the sharp agony of a blood clot. And she relaxed even further after I asked her whether this may have anything to do with my "heart problems." "It's probably acid reflux," she said finally, "or a panic attack. If it gets any worse this weekend, I want you to go to the ER. But otherwise, get yourself a bottle of Pepcid and just try to relax." And it was funny, but the second I got off the phone, my breathing felt freer, like somehow each breath was a reminder of how good it is to be alive. In other good news, my jaw is now closing on its own, and this year it looks like I'll be cutting my hair, rather than letting it fall off, like last time. + + + + + + + + + + + + + A Dynamite Magazine-style Bummer You know when you go to the bank and take out eighty effing dollars in anticipation of a weekend of carrying on only to discover, at the very doors of La Taqueria, that the eighty fuckadoodling dollars have suddenly gone missing, perhaps slipped from stupidly shallow pockets, perhaps thrown into the air in some sort of blacked-out seizure? And then, after you go back to the ATM and take out eighty more shit-storming dollars, you return to pay for your tacos, which are so dripping with salsa juice they rip through the bag and fall into the Mission Street gutter, right there on top of all the layers of gum and spore, flattened black condoms and broken glass? But, thinking the double-wrapped foil a trustworthy barrier, you rescue them and carry them home, arms fully extended, hands cupped to catch the drips, legs bent and lowered to minimize jarring and maximize speed? Then you get upstairs and drop them onto a plate with the sighing, sweat-wiping relief of a bomb squadroneer successfully dismantling a land mine, only to unwrap them and find a single pigeon feather planted and swaying there like some sort of fuck-you flag? And then you twist into a beer and just eat the taco anyway? Do you know that feeling? + + + + + + + + + + + + + Cowboy Birds and Hippy Birds I was walking down Mission and there, right on the shoulder of a bootleg CD-jam merchant, was a swaying little parrot with a cowboy hat strapped to his round, round head. It was one of those small, instant-joy sights that you don't even slow down for. You just spot it, turtle your head forward for a closer look to confirm that yes, that is indeed what it is, then you keep on walking, maybe smiling, maybe digging your hands deeper into your pockets and giving your nether-tummy a little "yay world" hug through the fabric of your pants. Of course when you're in a pet store, everything's different. There, you have to stop and log some major QT with the animals. Blowing gently on the hamsters and watching them crane up at you with pin-top eyes straining and neverending teeth parting against your wind. Rocking along with the chameleons as they burn three minutes placing one Mork-forked hand in front of the other. Circling the budgie cage as they bluster and flap and meep-meep to stay on the side of the cage furthest from you. Inadvertently driving the toucan into a beak-knocking frenzy with flashes from your vinyl, midget-pants-shaped purse. Etcetera! Paul and I were at PetCo once, back when it was Sammy's Pet World, and we heard sighing and crooning coming from the lower tier of the bird cages. So we squatted down for a closer encounter and found an African Grey dozing with eyes three quarters masted. Straining, we could hear he was talking to himself in a breathy, sing-song voice. "I can flyyyy," he said. "Oh, yessss." Later, I told my dad about the awesome dream bird, and he said, "Sounds like some old hippy to me." + + + + + + + + + + + + + A Bitch, a Wolf, Two Monkeys, and a Wedding It was a hundred degrees in Vegas and we were driving not to an air-conditioned casino with wave machines and fruity libations but to the suburbs for my cousin's wedding. We pulled up and parked in the dust of a would-be sidewalk, crammed our swollen feet into dress-up shoes, straightened our sweat-creased finery, and made our way to the front door. Once in the foyer, we signed our names in the white leather registry with a white, feathered pen, then we followed the signs around the house to the back yard. Along the way we passed the door to the garage where a handmade sign had been posted. "Keep shut," it read, "BITCH IN HEAT!!!" It was years before I discovered that this was a warning about an actual rut-poised dog and not a weird bride-to-be joke -- the groom's parents literally wanted their best of breed kept away from the three other dogs at the wedding (two labs and my uncle's wolf). Except for my uncle, who was standing off to the side with the wolf (which was chained up to the fence beside the pool), and a herd of squealing kids in bathing suits (who were burning their asses on the pool slide and getting stung by bees), everyone was gathered around the food table. It was a lavish, Chevy's-catered spread, and it was flanked by a gloriously churning margarita machine. As we scuttled to the watering hole, an emissary from my cousin snagged me, and I reluctantly left my date to the drink line and pointed my parched mouth toward the house. I found Audrey in the bedroom, busily adjusting herself into a off-white sheath. "Wow, you look absolutely beautiful!" And she did -- all flushed and happy, relaxed even. "Thanks! So do you!" I boosted myself up onto their towering California king and, legs swinging, turned to watch her apply the last layer of makeup. "So how close are we to final countdown?" "Oh, about five minutes ... hey! Do you want to be my maid of honor?" "Uh. OK. What would I need to do?" "I don't know. Just stand up there with me, I guess." As she put on a final touch of lipstick, my aunt/her mother went out to let people know that it was time. Once everyone was seated, I stuttered my sweaty thighs up the aisle and stood next to the groom, and my cousin followed close on my trail and planted herself next to us. Then the minister talked for a minute or two, Audrey and Tom exchanged their vows, kissed, and we all got up and started eating and drinking again. And that was when I noticed the monkeys. A friend of Audrey's from back in the days when she was dating a circus animal breeder had brought her two organ-grinders. Of course I ran, RAN, over to try and get my grubby, monkey-hungry hands on one. Sadly they didn't seem to be in the mood to be squeezed by Evany -- apparently they'd singed their little tongues on the jalapeno dip earlier in the party and as a result were world-weary and suspicious. They seemed to prefer the unsuspecting heads of the many ladies at the party with big, teased-up helmets of hair. "Oh!" the big-haired would cry, turning and turning, trying to get a look at the owner of the miniature clawed hands that were digging through their hair, searching for nits, "It's so ... cute! Hee! Hee!" Then the monkeys jumped onto the food table, where they grazed cautiously: Each morsel would be held up to one eye like a jeweler inspecting a diamond, followed by a tongue-prod, and finally a tentative nibble. Since they wouldn't let me near them, I cornered the monkey lady instead, firing off a full frontal assault of high-pitched monkey Qs: "How long have you had them? What do they eat? Do you take them everywhere? Do they love you?" I stuck to it like black on licorice, like a snot-pellet on a flicking finger, like a monkey-frenzied lady on a monkey, and was finally rewarded by getting to help change their diapers. They were so small, they wore diapers specially small to fit human premies. To make room for their tails, she simply stabbed a hole with a Bic pen and threaded them through! Yay, monkeys! With their little old-man faces and wrinkled fingers! Monkeys! After trying not to for a really long time, I finally noticed that we were surrounded by the sunburnt, bee-stung kids, each one of them glaring at me for hogging all the turns. Slowly I backed away and reluctantly tuned back in to what the non-monkey people were doing. The chairs had been cleared away and a money dance was in full swing. My date, who had chosen margaritas over monkeys, was well primed and jittering to leave and hit the blackjack tables. After all the hot, monkey action, I was tired and ready to leave, too. I tried to muscle my way into the dancing, bill-stuffing throng to say my goodbyes, but the groom (who had also received many a ticket from the margarita meter maid) swerved in front of me, pushing a wheelbarrow. The red, metal lip hit Audrey just behind her knees, and she toppled back into the cup of the barrow. As the two of them laughed and squealed and he ran-pushed her around the yard, the crowd closed in around them, dollar bills flying everywhere, and we faded back to the car. + + + + + + + + + + + + + All Fired Up Frank was in the driver's seat and I was sitting shotgun, showing him how the headlights weren't working. "See?" Flickon, flickoff, flickon, flickoff. "Nothing." Ominous wires had always hung down from behind the dash. "Maybe some important piece of tape came unstuck?" I said, pointing at the twisted nest. "Well, I can't even see which wire's doing what," he said. "Let's just take a look." He unscrewed the rings holding the wiper and "lighting" switches in place and, gently, he pulled the light switch out, exposing an inch of wiring. "Right. So the red one's going in here..." "I smell smoke. Is something burning?" I one-eyed up to the hole where the radio had never been and saw the light. "Something's GLOWING!" "Pop the hood! POP THE HOOD!" We ran around to the front of the car and I held up the hood as Frank frantically tried to unhook the battery with his bare hands and yelled, "Go get your fire extinguisher!" "I don't think I have one!" (Toxic, burning plastic smoke poured out the cracked windows.) "Maybe the trunk? Do you have the keys?" "Arguffff!" he screamed and ran for his tool shed and I just stood there, continuing to prop up the hood, watching and smelling the moment stretch out in classic slo-mo. My mom strolled out with two steaming mugs and chippered, "Who's ready for a cup of tea-eee?" Crashing sounds from Frank, then, "Someone's stolen it!" Mom: What? Frank: Fire! Fire! Me: Yeah, the car's on fire! My mom carefully put down the tea then hurried off to the house for the kitchen extinguisher, and I stood there, propping up the hood. My mom rushed back out with the aerosol extinguisher and Frank abandoned his shed search, grabbed it from her, and dove back into the car. I lowered the hood enough to watch him spray foam all over the place, and then I looked down. "Hey look! The headlights are working." + + + + + + + + + + + + + Taking the Cake When Megan got married, she asked us, her would-be bridesmaids, to bake her wedding cakes. We wouldn't have to pitchfork over the green for a dress and shoes we'd never wear again, and no marching down the aisle in that weird step, half-step, step, carrying a nosegay. Plus it was symbolic! Liz and Erin were responsible for a croquembouche (a cream-puff tower with spun sugar webbing), the three-tiered yellow cake with toasted fresh coconut frosting was up to Matt's sister, Melissa (but she was training to be a baker, so that wasn't too, too crazy), and Katie and I were sicced on two heart-shaped chocolate ganaches. The cake itself was pretty straightforward, just a single-layer deal (but smile-in-your-mouth tasty -- I ate the trial-run version for days and days ... moist, not too sweet, better and better with age, oh god). The ganache itself wasn't complicated either, but it was time-consuming. The block chocolate had to be whittled down to chips and boiled with cream, then divided into halves, one half whipped, fluffed, chilled, and spread on the cake, the other half dribbled over the top. But of course the day of the wedding, everything went pear shaped. Katie had her Blake baby two weeks before and was understandably too tired and overwhelmed to bake -- just getting to the wedding was going to be a stretch -- so she handed off her gourmet chocolate and wished me luck. With solo-flight in mind, I woke up at six so I would have plenty of time to bake, get all frocked up, and drive to Marin. I only had one heart shaped pan, so I had to cook the first cake and wait for it to cool enough to springform out before I could bake the second one. By the time I turned out cake number two, it was past eight. I chopped up the chocolate, melted it with cream, and put half of it in the refrigerator. Only no matter how long I chilled it, even in the freezer, it never thickened up. It was still insanely tasty -- I know because I finger-dipped enough of it to break out into a chocolate sweat -- but it just never got beyond the consistency of syrup. The problem, I realized, was that when I doubled the recipe, I funked up the fairy cake alchemy. It was still early, so I ran out and bought two more pints of heavy cream and started over. I chopped up my reserve chocolate (not as fancy as the first batch, which at that point was just a rumble down under, but whatever), poured in half the cream, and melted it to a boil. Then I halved it, chilled it, whipped it, and it firmed up nicely. I spread it over the first cake, dribbled the darker, un-fluffed half of the frosting on top, and it was done. But by then it was 12:30, and I was supposed to be at the church at two. Jill called to see how it was going, and I just squeaked at her in panic. She came right over because she is a cake angel and whipped the rest of the cream (we just gave up on making the rest of the frosting at that point) and spread it on with expert swirls while I threw on dress, wedding G-string, slides, mascara, lipstick, hair stuff; prepped my purse; and screamed "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" At three o-clock she ran to get her car. (The headlights had stopped working on my Cortina after the previous night's rehearsal dinner, and barreling home across the Golden Gate Bridge illuminated by nothing but hazzards was something I didn't really want to repeat, even if it did feel like the perfect metaphor for how things were going with Project Evany just then.) I made a tight-dress, knees-closed run out to car and Jill hopped out to help me arrange the two cakes, one on a platter, the other balanced on a pedestal, in the back seat in a huge pink bakery box I'd paid two bucks for at Lady Baltimore. I peeled out, drove through the city, across the bridge, and down into the Sausalito hills, the whole way watching the box in the rear-view like it was my baby. As I approached the church, relieved with a full fifteen minutes to spare, I could see the puffy meringue of a wedding dress blowing out front. "Ahhhh! She's making her final approach!" But when I pulled up behind her, I realized it wasn't Megan at all, just some anonymous bride trying to keep her heels off her skirt and her veil off her lipstick. I rolled down my passenger-side window and yelled, "Is there some other church around here? Have other people come looking for a different wedding? Matt and Megan?" And she just nodded no and gave me a "Hello? Crazy lady? This is my very special wedding day!" look. By then I was pretty much crying. I dug out the invitation, but all it said under the name of the church was, "See our website for directions!" I fired up my cellphone, but because I was in the middle of a valley and was surrounded by trees it wouldn't make a connection. So I tore back up the curvy, curvy road and tried the phone again from the tippy top of the hill. I got through, called information, asked for the number of the church, was connected automatically, got the voicemail, listened through all the information about upcoming services, god, blablabla, then heard, "Press Star for directions." I pressed Star and a woman picked up and said, "Sprint PCS! Name and city?" "I was in middle of voicemail, who are you? Why are you?" "Uh oh! Did you press Star?" Apparently Sprint designates the Star button as a shortcut to their operators, a function you have to specially disable if you want to use Star for other purposes. "YES! DISABLE! DISABLE!" The directions were from the freeway, so I had to backtrack to the exit and drive from there. I found the church right away, parked the car, pulled off the lid of the cake box, and found the cakes. After all that driving around the curves, they were utterly mushed together, like suicide pact roadkill. Sweating and streaming tears, I carried their poor, broken bodies into the reception hall and handed them to the caterers. ("Here!") They quickly covered the elephant-mannish shapes with some funky raspberries then hid them behind the beautiful coconut fortress, where they went virtually unnoticed until they were briskly cut up at cake time and distributed before anyone got a good look at them. They tasted fine (the combo of lots of chocolate and heavy cream tends to do that). And the wedding was such a tear-jerker (Homemade vows! A hand-embroidered gown! Drummers/dragon dancers/fireworks!) that my red, bulging eyes, blotched face, and uncontrollable shaking blended right in with the rest of the blubbering crowd. Then we all guzzled champagne, breakdanced, and lived happily ever after. + + + + + + + + + + + + + Slice of Life Aside from the Evany gum, the Evany hair clips, and the Evany petition (oh and the Evany flow chart, which tracked my evolution from a sperm/egg into the ideal employee), the other thing I brought to that "I'll do anything for an unpaid internship" presentation were cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes! Each one had a frosting letter and they were arranged to spell out "E-V-A-N-Y-4-D-D-B" (I guess it helps to know that DDB was the name of the company I was trying to wow). And of the four people sitting around the boardroom table, only one person took a cupcake, and even he ate just half of it. I couldn't figure it out. It wasn't that they were afraid of thirsting to death because I had thought to bring milk (low- and regular-fat) and bottled water (for those freaky diet people). Maybe they were too overwhelmed by my dazzle-dancing to chew? Had they just finished lunch? But I don't care how full you are, there's always a vacancy in motel stomach for cake. Not only does it taste better than the smell of the sound of rain, but it's sexy! I was at a bakery recently, Sweet Lady Jane's, and one of their frosting artists came walking out with a cake in his arms. (Their decorators actually have a thumb-holed palette for the different colors and a special little studio. You can see it all if you take a trip to their bathroom -- the tubs of frosting, the cooling cakes, the raw batter dripping off paddles, and, oh, all sorts of other irrefutable proof that god exists -- making it one of the most scenic walks in LA.) And the boy-cake combo actually prompted a stirring in my southern states. Yes he was cute, whatever, but the cake! Frosting flowers! Fresh Berries! And a full four layers! Everything below my Mason-Dixon line was on FIRE! Yet those four people sat through my entire half-hour presentation, bare inches from top-grade cupcake meat, and they stuffed exactly none of it in their cake holes! What is wrong with this world? + + + + + + + + + + + + + BJ and the Bear When I moved to LA, I was crazy-poor and desperate for work. After about a week, I'd torched through all of my savings and potential college-degree-related job contacts, so, starving for rent money, I crumple-tossed my "real" resume (which was nothing but internships ridiculously inflated into jobs: summer stuffing envelopes for no pay = "Promotions Assistant," 6/99-9/99 = 1999, etc.) and took my "restaurant" resume (which listed with painful accuracy all my experience waitressing, catering, countering, and hostessing) on a tour of every possible food purveyor I could find. The only places that called me back were Starbucks and Ben and Jerry's. Starbucks wanted to interview me immediately, and I trotted right on in to lie to the shift leader about how much I liked coffee (at that point, I'd never even had a cup), which lead to an interview the next day with the assistant manager, who arranged another meeting with the manager the following week. The day of Starbucks interview number three (so insane) was also when my first interview with Ben and Jerry's was scheduled. I padded my time heavily between the interviews so I had a good hour and a half to kill after my final interview at Starbucks (which featured amazing Qs like, "Do you have any pet peeves, and if yes, how do they reflect your work ethic?" A: "Co-workers who don't carry their own weight!") . I walked around and around the neighborhood so I'd arrive exactly on time at the ice creamery. I was greeted by the manager, a short man with Weird Al hair and mustache, who said, "Oh. Right. You're the one from San Francisco. I can tell because you people always overdress for every occasion." I was wearing slacks, a white tee, and a tight-fitting vintage men's waistcoat -- it was the early 90s! -- so he was probably right, but still, what a huge dick! We sat down at one of the sticky tables, and he said, "So, what have you got for me?" When he had called me in for the interview, he had told me that he didn't like people whose lives were limited to ice cream -- he wanted creative, motivated employees with rich lives. He, for instance, was more than just a manager at an ice cream store -- he was also a stand-up comedian. ("How do people hitch-hike in Hawaii [thumbs-up visual]?" Punchline: [thumb-and-pinky-up visual] "Shocka, bro!" Get it? Yes, just like I get the flu.) To prove how well-rounded I was, he wanted me to bring in some sort of demonstration of my creativity. One of his interviewees, for instance, had made a movie called Where the Cows Are and screened it at the interview, another had written and read an epic, "Ode to Ben and Jerry" poem. I brought a bunch of self-promotional stuff I'd made to land the summer internship in promotions, sticks of Evany gum ("For a breath of fresh air!"), cute Evany hair clips, and a petition attesting to what an asset I was, signed by 500 friends, family, fellow students, and customers at the restaurant where I had waited tables. One by one, I took all the shwag out of my bag, "Here's all the stuff I've created to convince people to hire me, but if you won't take my word for it," I tossed out the petition, all confident and creative and self-assured like I thought he wanted me to be, "then maybe you'll believe the many thousands of people who already think I'm worth it." He just looked it all over silently, then said, "It doesn't look like thousands of people signed this petition. It looks like four hundred, maybe four-fifty." In my defence, I said, "Well, that list is just a sampling of my many believers." "Did you lie on your resume, too?" Before I could answer, he jumped up from the table and ran behind the counter to help a customer. When he came back, he said, "See? We're team players here at Ben and Jerry's. Yes, I'm a Manager, but when my counter person needs help, I roll up my sleeves and dig in. From what you're wearing, and where you've worked, I don't think you have what it takes to make it here. As a stand-up comedian, I've done a lot of work with people in promotions, and my experience has taught me that none of you are willing to help out when push really comes to shove." I just sat there, carping, and he jumped up to help some more customers. When he came back to the table, I said, "Obviously, I'm not what you're looking for." And he said, "Tell you what, if you go outside and yell at the top of your lungs how much you love Ben and Jerry's, I'll give you the job." "You're kidding." "No. I'm waiting." "Have you ever heard about that fraternity that made its pledges have sex with sheep, and the only guys they let in were the ones who refused to do it?" "No," he said, "I've never head of anything like that." And because my panic over lack of money was greater than my pride, and because the grossness of the situation had gained its own, weird momentum, I did it. Only I didn't scream and yell, I simply addressed the first two people that came along, a couple of elderly ladies walking arm-in-arm, in a normal voice. "Excuse me -- there's a man in there that knows how badly I need a job, so he's making me come out here at tell the world how much I love Ben and Jerry's. So, 'I love Ben and Jerry's!'" "Oh, how AWFUL. But good LUCK!" When I went back inside, he was standing there with his arms crossed. "I didn't hear you scream." "I thought the personal, one-on-one touch was better." "Here," he said, "let me show you how it's done." As he was outside, screaming how much he loved Ben and Jerry's, my eyes locked with the sweaty person standing behind the counter, who shook her head in knowing sympathy. He bounded back in. "You still here?" I stared at him, shocked at what a turn my life had taken, then I turned silently away to pack up my gum and petition and resume. "Hold up!" he said, grabbing my elbow. "You've stuck it out this long, so obviously you have some fight in you. I'm going to give you the job." "Great. Thanks." "It's $5.50 an hour, you have to wear a hair net, and, just so you know, I'm a little bit touchy-feely, but it doesn't mean anything." When I got out to my car, there was a thirty-dollar ticket on the windshield. I thought of the six hours I'd have to work for that man just to pay it off, and started wailing. When I got home, a message was waiting for me from Starbucks, telling me I had the job -- six fifty an hour, health insurance, and no touchy-feely. When I didn't report for work at Ben and Jerry's, Huge Dick gave me a call. "Where are you?" How I wish I'd said something cutting, witty, and damaging ("Tell you what, if you go out in the street and scream how much you want me to work there, I'll consider it."), but instead I just said, "Oh, I decided to take a job elsewhere." "Well, I guess you're not the creative, fun-loving person we like to have work here after all!" "Nope, I guess not." Two years later, I went into a Ben and Jerry's with my friend Sophia, and there he was behind the counter. I was instantly so shaking mad that I couldn't order, and I just walked out. After about a hundred feet, I stopped and turned to Sophia, "I have to go back in there and tell him what a horrible, horrible person he is." And she said, "You could. But do you really have to? I mean, he's working behind the counter of Ben and Jerry's. Still." "Right. You're totally right." + + + + + + + + + + + + + How Could I Leave this Behind? I met Jamie Lee Curtis once, at least I made her a hot cocoa, which is like way, way more intimate than just "meeting" someone -- we might as well have frenched. I was working at Starbucks and the hot chocolate was actually for her daughter (her adopted daughter -- remember Jamie's extra Y chromosome? He he!) -- not the most exciting brush with stardom, except that the two ladies were accompanied by the fabulous Christopher Guest, JLC's husband and the man behind up-to-eleven Nigel of Spinal Tap, which is still so funny, and Best in Show, which maybe wasn't nearly as funny but certainly shone with big-bottom brilliance in some spots. Like that couple with braces and the dog in therapy who describe in freakish detail their meeting at Starbucks? Laughs and laughs! I may be reading into this a bit, but I can't help thinking that the moments Chris and I spent together that day in Starbucks -- him shuffling along a step behind and to the left of Jamie, silent and avoiding all eye contact, me beaming and sweating and calling out, "child's size cocoa!" in an extra-loud (they were the only people in there) and unplanned Rennaisance Pleasure Faire voice before handing off the cup with a precious, two-handed flourish -- were when the seeds of that scene were first sewn. + + + + + + + + + + + + + I'm Sweat on You! At my old gym, those thigh-pumping machines -- the ones where you crank-k-k-k your legs open wide, right into the "THIS" position of "some girls sit like this, some girls sit like this, but the girls who site like THIS get this like that [snap!]," and then squeeze against the weight until you're back to the virginal "this" position -- were right across from the drinking fountain. Thirsty iron-pumpers would lean down to suck in the cool, filtered nectar and their glance would slide up through their brows and right into the welcoming arms of your straining crotch. And immediately the burning act of self-torture would be transformed into a sex act, like the eroticization that the entire art of aerobics received in the movie Perfect, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta, which I never saw but I totally remember its ad: Jamie, on her back, feet on the ground, headband across forehead, pumping her pelvis sky-high. Her eyes lock with John and it is as though they are making love right there in the middle of their abs workout. + + + + + + + + + + + + + People Who Talk to Me, and the Shoes They Wear Jill and I were walking to the gym and we were on this block of Church that's like a modern version of one of those "experience the Wild, Wild West" towns, where there's a shootout every hour on the hour and everyone drinks sarsaparillas and calls each other varmints. This particular block features these movie-settish stores -- a bakery, cafe, diner, florist, and frame shoppe -- which are populated by wacky, authentic San Francisco types who wear colorful clothes and pop out and try to interact with you. You don't actually walk down this block, you float on a people-moving escalator, and the extras stand rooted off to the side, leaning in only to deliver their lines. This one semi-normal looking guy got our attention by kicking his foot up onto a bench, pointing at his ferociously white tennis shoes, and saying, "Do these make my feet look too big? [big smile to the crowd]" And I said, weirdly, "No, they look too small," and we kept walking. At the gym, Jill and I scored side-by-side elliptical trainers, and we were killing time in the usual fashion -- talking about gender roles, heart rates, and the temperature of Benicio Del Toro (hot!), playing the "who would you rather sleep with" game ("lights on" edition), and glancing now and then at the closed-captioned TVs bolted to the ceiling. The one right in front of us was playing that crocodile-and-snake-guy show, which is just insane. Every time I looked up, he was lying on top of a croc, roping and rolling and wrestling a croc, or getting bitten by a croc. There seemed to be no sense to it -- just endless shots of hot-croc-action. Remember that "I'd Buy That for a Dollar" game show that would flash in and out of Robocop? How it was so over-the-top, so surreal, that it gave the movie a really "doomed future" feel? Well that's exactly what the croc show is, a background hint that things aren't going well in my movie. I asked Jill, "What is he catching them for? To eat? For their skins?" And then the guy whose job it is to spray stuff on the equipment and wipe it absently with a towel leaned in from the right (Jill was stage-left) and said, "No, he's catching them for the zoo, but they make shoes and bags out of their skins. Also: snake skin, eel skin, shark skin, ostrich skin..." Me: Huh! SprayTowelMan: But when you wear those shoes, everyone gets all intimidated. They look down at your feet and say, those are $700 shoes! And they feel bad about themselves. Me: What, like cowboy boots? SprayTowelMan: Cow[disgustedly]boy boots? No! Loafers! I went to jury duty, and I got on my nice shoes and shirt, and everyone there was dressed like a slob, like nobodies! Me: [nothing -- I wasn't allowed to talk from that point on.] Jill: [leaves to go pump iron because she's way smarter than I am.] SprayTowelMan: I was raised to dress sharp, to look good, but I have to dress down [points to his super-new sneakers] to make people feel comfortable about themselves, women too! And [moewmeow] small closets [meowmeow] city people [meow] camping [foreverandeverandever] ... Me: [by now totally finished with my "fat burning" cycle, just standing next to the machine, a double-dutch jumper looking for even the slightest opening for me to take my leave from this conversational hostage-taker] BUT MY FATHER IS FROM NEW JERSEY, AND I DON'T LIKE SPORTS! SprayTowelMan: [meowmeowmeow] If it had really been my movie, I would have given in to the astonishment-turned-fury bubbling under my surface and screeched, "People don't hate you because of your fucking shoes, they hate you because you're a walking monologue that doesn't care what the rest of us say, think, or want! Since you're clearly not looking to interact, wouldn't you be happier talking to the StairMaster(TM)?" And then he would go over and start babbling to the machine, which would have no issues whatsoever with his $700 loafers, he'd fall in love, take StairMaster home, and the last shot would be the two of them spooning in a sea of satin sheets. The End! But in real life, I just interrupted him and said, "OK then [walking toward weight area] I have to go over here now." SprayTowelMan: Well, sure, you're one of those women who love sports. + + + + + + + + + + + + + Full-Service Garage In my old apartment, my window was right above a really hot hooker spot -- my garage -- so I'd overhear stuff like, "Do you want to fuck here, or over there?" as I was drifting off to sleep at night. And whenever I pulled into the driveway, the night-lady, who'd be standing there blocking my way, would always think I was there not to park my car but to enter her "private garage". I'd have to show her my clicker, point at the door rolling up behind her, smile and shake my head, and mouth, "No thank you, no thank you!" before she'd move out of the way. My friends would always complain what a nightmare it was trying to park in my neighborhood -- not because there were no spaces (though that was a big problem, too), but because looking for parking is so similar to looking for a date: the same slow circling of the block, the same neck craning over the steering wheel. Whoops! + + + + + + + + + + + + + Saint Patrick's Day Round-up Now that I'm thirty-old and don't automatically go out to rage on every drinking-based holiday, this past Saturday I found myself not out painting the town green, but at home, in bed. Since I live above a bar, though, it was almost as good as being there. People were so Saint Patricked out, screaming and laughing and belching right below my window, I could almost taste the beer and feel the pinching (I wasn't wearing green!). Anyway, since I couldn't sleep, I just lay there, remembering my favoritist Green Day ever. It was back when I was living in LA, and I was waiting for the bus and sitting next to this kind, elderly lady (TM), and she started talking to me. At first she seemed A-OK, making small-talk about the weather and other safe stuff. But then she started talking about Sainty P as if she knew him personally. "He would never have wanted it this way. He hates Lucky Charms!" Oh boy! Then the bus came and I decided not to sit next to her, despite how close we had become, and she started talking to her new seat-mate friend, and I thought that was the end of that. But then! As she was getting off at her stop, she paused at the head of the aisle, turned to the whole bus, and with a sweep of her arm, pealed out, "You are all invited to my house for tea and babyfood!" I opted not to take her up on the offer, but it was nice to be invited. + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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get going!
bearing down
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